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11 



Frank D. Millet J. A. Mitchell 
Will H. Low W. Hamilton Gibson 

F. Hopkinson Smith 



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New York 

Charles Scribner's Sons 

1893 



SOME ARTISTS AT THE FAIR 




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THE COURT OF HONOR— DOME OF ADMINISTRATION BUILDING. 



SOME ARTISTS AT THE FAIR 



FRANK D. MILLET J. A. MITCHELL 

WILL H. LOW W. HAMILTON GIBSON 

F. HOPKINSON ' SMITH 



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NEW YORK 

CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 

1893 



or NOV 22 ij3f\ 

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Copyright, 1893, by 
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 



TROW DIRECTORY 
PRINTING AND BOOKBINDING COMPANY- 
NEW YORK 



CONTENTS 



PAGE 



THE DECORATION OF THE EXPOSITION, . . . / 

TYPES AND PEOPLE AT THE FAIR, , ... 43 

THE ART OF THE WHITE CITY, 59 

FOREGROUND AND J^ISTA AT THE FAIR, . . . 81 

THE PICTURESQUE SIDE, 100 






LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 

PAGE 

The Court of Honor — Dome of Adifiinistration Building, Frontispiece 
Riders of Winged Horses, from W. L. Dodge's Decoration in the 

Administration Building, ...... i 

Figure Emblematic of the Textile Arts, by Robert Reid, in one of 

the Domes of the Manufactures Building, .... 3 

Allegorical Figure of '"''Needle-work,''' by J. Alden Weir, in one of 

the Domes of the Manufactures Building, .... 7 

'"''Forging,''' Figure by E. F. Si?nmons, in the Dome of the East 

Portal, Manufactures Building, . . . . . . 11 

" Musicians," Fragment from the Procession, by W. L. Dodge, in 

the Dome of the Administration Building, . . . 14 

" Ceramic Painting,'' by Kenyon Cox, in a Dome of the East 

Portal, Manufactures Building, . . ... . . 15 

" Autumn," Panel by G. 14'^. Maynard, in the Agricultural Build- 

^'ig, 18 

^'' Pearl," by Walter Shir I aw,- in a Dome of the North Portal, 

Manufactures Building, . . . . . . . 19 

" The Telephone," by J. Carroll Beckwith, in a Dome of the North 

Portal, Manufactures Building, . . . . . . 27^ 

'■''Decoration," Figure by C. S. Rein hart, . . . . .29 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 



" The Armorer s Crafty' one of Four Figures by E. II. Blaskfield, 
Rep rese filing the Arts of Metal Working, 

Female Figure from JK L. Dodges Decoration in the Adminis- 
tration Buildings . . . . . 

Banner Adopted from the Standard of Spain under Ferdinand and 
Isabella, ........ 

Banner Adopted from the Expeditionary Flag of Columbus 

Trying to Get the Better of the Native, 

Fakirs, . . . . . . 

A Bride and Groom, 

Wheeled About at Seventy -five Cents per Hour, 

The Question of Finance, .... 

Cafe in the Midway Flaisance, 

Lighting the Natural Gas Torches on. the Roof of the Adminis- 
tration Building, . . . . 

At Night on the Midivay Flaisance, ...... 

Lndian Girl ami Bull, Modelled by French & Potter, 

German Building, ......... 

Central Portion of MacMonnies Fountain — Ejfect of Electric Light, 

The Border of the Lagoon, 

A Bit of the Calif ornian Building, 

The Calif ornian Building, .... 

A Cove in Wooded Island, 

The Edge of the Rose Garden, Wooded Island, 

Japanese Building on Wooded Island, . 

An Aged Japanese Dwarf, One Hundred Years Old — A Cornei 
of the Horticultural Buildings 



33 

37 

39 
39 

45 
47 
52 
54 
56 
57 

6r 

64 

^S 
66 

n 

84 

86 

87 

88 

9f 
92 

9?> 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 



XI 



Portal of the Fishei'ies Building, ...... 

Elkhorn Fern, a Suggestion for an Architect — In the Australian 
Exhibit, Horticultural Hall, .... 

The Peristyle, . . . . . . . 

Distant Viezu of Dome of the Horticultural Building, 

Dome of Horticultural Building at Night, 

In Old Vienna, ........ 

Mosque of the Sultan Seli?n, ..... 

^'Far-away Moses," ....... 

Doorway of the Transportation Building, 

In Cairo Street, ........ 



PAGE 

95 
97 

I02 
103 
106 
107 
III 
114 
116 
119 




RIDERS OF WINGED HORSES, FROM W. L. DODGE'S DECORATIOlN IN THE 
ADMINISTRATION BUILDING. 



THE DECORATION OF THE EXPOSITION 

By F. D. Millet 

THE grand style, the perfect proportions, and 
the magnificent dimensions of the buildings of 
the World's Columbian Exposition, excite a 
twofold sentiment in the mind of the visitor — wonder 
and admiration at the beauties of the edifices, and 
regret and disappointment that they are not to re- 
main as monuments to the good taste, knowledge, 
and skill of the men who built them, and as a per- 



2 SOME ARTISTS AT THE FAIR 

manent memorial of the event which the Exposition 
is intended to celebrate. This complex feeling is a 
natural one, and is perfectly comprehensible in the 
presence of the noble porticos and colonnades, the 
graceful towers, superb domes, and imposing fa- 
(;ades. Previous exhibitions, with the possible excep- 
tion of that in Vienna in 1873, have been confess- 
edly ephemeral in the character of their construction, 
and have shown a distinctly playful and festal style 
of architecture, with little attempt at seriousness or 
dignity of design. The monumental character of 
the group of Exposition buildings in Chicago is not 
the result of accident, but of deliberate forethought 
and wise judgment. 

In the heat of the fever of construction, which 
has spread like a contagion from the rocks of Mount 
Desert to the white sands of the Pacific coast, a new 
race of architects has sprung up, fertile in resources 
and clever in execution, but with little well- 
grounded knowledge of the real principles of their 
art. Beeinnine with the bulbous conodomerations 
of material w^hich have been forced upon a long- 
suff*ering public by the Government architects, and 
ending with consciously picturesque structures that 
hint more of the terrors of mediaeval dungeons than 
of the comforts of domestic life, and bear the title 
of villa but the aspect of military strongholds, the 
architecture of the past two decades has, with some 




FIGURE EMBLEMATIC OF THB TEXTILE ARTS, BY ROBERT KEID, IN ONE OF THE DOMES 

OF THE MANUFACTTRES BUILDING. 



THE DECORATION OF THE EXPOSITION 5 

notable exceptions, been distinguished by increas- 
ing ingenuity in imitation rather than the develop- 
ment of skill in adaptation. It would be worse than 
foolish to demand that an architect should be thor- 
oughly original, as it would be to ask an artist to cut 
loose from all the proven principles and traditions of 
his profession, and invent an entirely new meth- 
od and a novel system. What may be reasonably 
asked of an architect is that he have an individual 
point of view, and modernize the adaptation of old 
principles without disturbing the real spirit of the 
same ; that he develop and extend these principles 
to meet the requirements of modern life ; that, in 
fact, he work as nearly as possible in the same direc- 
tion that the masters of ancient architecture would 
have done if they had been dealing with modern 
problems of design, plan, and construction. There 
are certain immutable laws of harmony and propor- 
tion which have always governed and will always 
rule in architecture as in art, and though they are 
disregarded and tampered with for the sake of nov- 
elty and so-called originality, this faithlessness al- 
ways meets its just punishment in the result. The 
majority of modern architects have, in these days of 
abundant photographs, models, and measurements, 
been led to cater to the vanity of half-educated 
clients, and have engrafted French chateaux on Ro- 
manesque palaces, have invented wonderfully in- 



6 SOME ARTISTS AT THE FAIR 

genious but viciously hybrid combinations, one of 
which has been aptly described as " (jueen Anne in 
front and Mary Ann in the back." The precept and 
example of the scholarly men in the profession have 
been powerless to stem this tide of ill-considered de- 
sign, and nothing short of gradual regeneration and 
slow revulsion of sentiment against this tendency 
has been hoped for until the present year. 

Mr. D. H. Burnham, the Director of Works of 
the World's Columbian Exposition, took the first 
important step toward the renaissance of the true 
spirit of architecture in this country by ignoring all 
precedents of competition, and selecting as asso- 
ciates certain architects and firms whose records 
established their position as true leaders of the pro- 
fession. These architects, after studious contempla- 
tion of the situation, decided on the adoption of a 
general classical style for the buildings, subject, of 
course, to such modifications as were found neces- 
sary by the requirements of each individual case. 
The result is a satisfactory and sufficient proof of 
the wisdom of Mr. Burnham's action, and there is 
now before the country a more extensive and in- 
structive object-lesson in architecture than has ever 
been presented to any generation in any country 
since the most flourishing period of architectural 
effort The educational importance of this feature 
of the great Exposition can scarcely be over-esti- 




ALLEGORICAL FIGURE OF "NEEDLE-WORK," BY J. ALDEN WEIR, IN ONE OF THE DOMES 

OF THE MANUFACTURES BUILDING. 



THE DECORATION OF THE EXPOSITION 9 

mated, and its salutary influence on the future ar- 
chitecture of this ccp^untry can be prophesied with 
absolute certainty. The scheme has not been con- 
sidered complete, however, nor the lesson properly 
emphasized, without the necessary adjuncts of the 
two arts so closely allied to architecture, sculpture 
and painting, both of which have been drawn upon 
with freedom and good judgment to supplement 
and enrich the architectural features. Sculpture has 
been employed far more extensively than its sister 
art, for the very good reason that few of the build- 
ings have been constructed with any intention of 
carrying the interiors to any high degree of finish. 
It would have been impracticable, under the circum- 
stances, to bring the interiors up to the same per- 
fection as the exteriors, even with the cheapest ma- 
terial, for it would have added an enormous per 
cent, to the cost of construction. The architects 
have, therefore, in most cases frankly accepted the 
situation and confined their efforts at embellishment 
to the fagades, considering the buildings simply as 
great sketches of possible permanent structures, con- 
fessedly utilitarian as to the interior, but as sump- 
tuous and suo^o^estive in exterior treatment as the 
conditions permitted. Indeed, this was the only 
reasonable view to take, both because of the enor- 
mous size of the buildings and the complex uses for 
which they are intended. The exhibits themselves 



10 SOME ARTISTS AT THE FAIR 

are necessarily such prominent features of the in- 
teriors that they only need a background of more or 
less simple character to complete, with the elaborate 
installation which is being carried on, quite as agree- 
able a decoration scheme as might be reasonably 
expected on such an enormous scale. 

Without going into details of construction, it is 
proper to call attention to one feature of the in- 
teriors, notably of the Machinery and Manufactures 
and Liberal Arts buildings, where the architect and 
the engineer have joined forces and produced a re- 
sult far ahead of anything before accomplished. I 
refer to the wonderfully beautiful iron-work of these 
buildings, which satisfies to an eminent degree both 
the utilitarian and aesthetic requirements. Mr. C. B. 
Atwood, Designer in Chief, co-operated with Mr. E. 
C. Shankland, Chief Engineer, in working out a plan 
of construction of the immense trusses with the con- 
necting girders, purlins, and braces, which has been 
carried out in great perfection. The ugly forms of 
ordinary bridge-builders' construction, which have 
hitherto been endured as necessary for rigidity and 
strength, have been largely eliminated, and graceful 
curves, well-balanced proportions, and harmonious 
lines unite to make the iron-work, beautiful in it- 
self, a distinctly ornamental feature of the interiors. 
Thus, without flourish of trumpets, a great advance 
has been made, and the great truth promulgated 




FORGING," FIGURE BY E. E. SIMMONS, IN THE DOME OF THE EAST 
PORTAL, MANUFACTURES BUILDING. 



THE DECORATION OF THE EXPOSITION 13 

that the useful may be beautiful even in engineer- 
ing^. Paintino[" of an artistic character has been con- 
fined for the most part to a few domes and panels in 
various pavilions, to wall spaces under colonnades 
and porticos, and to the two or three interiors in 
which there is sufficiently high finish to permit of 
mural decoration. 

The Administration Building, by Mr. Richard 
M. Hunt, which was built for the uses of the 
World's Columbian Commission with the numerous 
branches of its executive force, is the real focus of 
the group of buildings, not only from its position in 
the centre of a grand plaza of enormous extent, but 
on account of its monumental character. The por- 
tals and the anHes of this buildino^ are adorned with 
groups of sculpture by Mr. Carl Bitter, of New York, 
and spandrels and panels, both outside and inside, 
are enriched by designs by the same sculptor. The 
dome, which is two hundred and sixty-five feet high, 
is truncated at the top and is lighted by a great eye 
forty feet in diameter. The interior of this dome 
around the great eye, a surface of the approximate 
dimensions of 35x300 feet, is to be covered with a 
figure composition painted by Mr. W. L. Dodge, 
representing in general terms the figure of a god on 
a high Olympian throne crowning with wreaths of 
laurel the representatives of the arts and sciences, 
and flanked by figures of Agriculture, Commerce, 



14 



SOME ARTISTS AT THE FAIR 



and Peace. A Greek canopy, supported by flying 
female figures, contrasts agreeably with the clear 

blue of the sky 
background, 
against which the 
principal groups 
are shown in 
strong relief. 
Three winged 
horses drawing 
a vehicle with a 
model of the Par- 
thenon, troops of 
w^arriors cheer- 
ing the victors in 
the peaceful strife 
of the arts, and a 
wealth of minor 
figures, make up 
the composition, 
which is bold and 
imposing not on- 
ly in magnitude 
but in line. The 
interior walls of the Qrreat Rotunda are tinted so 
as to give the eff'ects of colored marbles and mosa- 
ics and under the outside the massive white Doric 
columns have a background of Pompeian richness 




"MUSICIANS," FRAGMENT FROM THE PROCESSION, BY VV. 
L. DODGE, IN THE DOME OF THE ADMINISTRATION 
BUILDING. 



p 




" CERAMIC PAINTING," BY KENYON COX, IX A DOME OF THE EAST PORTAL, 

MANUFACTURES BUILDING. 



(From an unfinished sketch. 



THE DECORATION OF THE EXPOSITION 17 

of tone. With the exception of Mr. Dodge's com- 
position in the Administration Building, neither 
of the other buildings fronting on the grand plaza 
has any purely artistic decoration, although the 
hemicycle and portions of the Electricity Build- 
ing, and the extensive arcades of the Machinery 
Building, are all treated with flat colors to sup- 
plement this architectural ornament, the former by 
Mr. Maitland Armstrong, the latter by Mr. E. E. 
Garnsey, of F. J. Sarmiento & Co. Across the south 
canal, however, a blaze of richly colored panels 
in the pavilions of the Agricultural Building, with 
here and there a figure of an animal half hidden by 
the superb Corinthian columns, shows where Mr. G. 
W. Maynard and his assistant, Mr. H. T. Schlader- 
mundt, have converted, by the magic of their art, the 
uninteresting plaster surfaces into a series of elabo- 
rate pictures. This decoration has been planned 
with great attention to the appropriate character of 
its individual features. There are two pavilions at 
either end of the building, with a large doorway 
breaking the wall into two panels, each one of which 
has a dado of elaborate ornament, a narrow border 
of conventionalized Indian corn on each side, and 
great garlands of fruit on top framing an oblong 
rectangle of rich Pompeian red with a colossal fe- 
male figure of one of the seasons. Above the two 
panels, and connecting them by a band of color, is 

2 



18 



SOME ARTISTS AT THE FAIR 



a frieze with rearing horses, bulls, oxen drawing a 
cart of ancient form, and other small groups of agri- 
cultural subjects. 
The focus of the 
decorative scheme 
is naturally at the 
main portico, the 
entrance to the 
Rotunda, called 
the Temple of 
Ceres, with the 
statue of the rad- 
dess in the mys- 
terious twilioht of 
the graceful and 
impressive inte- 
rior. The portico 
is treated on much 
the same plan as 
the side pavilions, 
but as it provides 
a much greater 
area of wall sur- 
face, Mr. Maynard 
has been able to 
introduce a richer 
combination of colors and a greater variety of fig- 
ures. *' Abundance " and '' Fertilitv," two colossal 




"AUTUMN," PANEL BY G. W. MAYNARD, .IN THE 
AGRICULTURAL BUILDING. 



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PEARL," BY WALTER SHIRLAW, IX A DOME OF THE NORTH PORTAL, 
MANUFACTURES BUILDING. 



THE DECORATION OF THE EXPOSITION 21 

female figures, occupy, with the richly ornamented 
borders, great flat niches on either side of the en- 
trance, and are flanked in turn on the side-walls by 
the figure of King Triptolemus, the fabled inventor 
of the plough, and the goddess Cybele, symbolical 
of the fertility of the earth, the one in a chariot 
drawn by dragons, the other leading a pair of lions. 
These figures, as well as those in the four porticos, 
are treated in a broad, simple manner, so that they 
carry perfectly to a great distance and at the same 
time lose nothing by close inspection. 

The sumptuousness of the color decoration is 
balanced by the lavish abundance of sculpture work 
which fills the pediments and crowns the piers and 
pylons, and, in general terms, the main features of 
the fagades. The main pediment is by Mr. Larkin 
G. Mead ; and the other statues — figures of abun- 
dance with cornucopiae, a series of graceful maidens 
holding signs of the Zodiac, groups of four females 
representing the quarters of the globe supporting a 
horoscope, and various colossal agricultural animals 
— are all by the hand of Mr. Philip Martiny, who 
joins Mr. Olin L. Warner in supplementing the ar- 
chitectural ornamentation of the Art Building with 
various figures and bas-reliefs. Dominating the 
grand outlines of the edifice, perched high on the 
flat dome, is the gilded figure of Diana, by Mr. Au- 
gustus St. Gaudens, familiar as the finial of the 



22 SOAIE ARTISTS AT THE FAIR 

tower of the Madison Square Garden in New York, 
a fitting apex of the monumental structure. 

The north ' front of the Agricultural Building, 
with the Peristyle and the south facade of the Manu- 
factures and Liberal Arts Building, form a grand 
court of honor, so to speak, facing the Administra- 
tion Building, which may be appropriately termed 
the Gateway qf the Exhibition, for it rises directly in 
front of the Terminal Station, a building of vast pro- 
portions and noble aspect, designed to accommodate 
the thousands of visitors who reach the Fair by the 
numerous lines of railways concentrated at this 
point. Six rostral columns, surmounted by a figure 
of Neptune, by Mr. Johannes Gelert, accent this 
court at different points. Mr. Frederick MacMon- 
nies's fiii-de-siecle colossal fountain fills the west 
end of the basin with a busy group of symbolical 
figures and a flood of rushing water. Opposite, at 
the east end of the o-litterino[- sheet of water which 
reflects the architectural glories of the colonnades, 
the dignified, simple statue of the Republic, by Mr. 
D. C. French, towers high in air, relieved against the 
beautiful screen of the Peristyle, with its forest of 
columns showing clear cut against the blue waters 
of the lake. Every column and every pier of the 
Peristyle has its crowning figure, the work of Mr. 
Theodore Baur, and the great central arch, or 
Water-Gate supports a colossal Quadriga executed 








" THE TELEPHONE," BY J. CARROLL BECKWITH, IN A DOME OF THE NORTH PORTAL, 

MANUFACTURES BUILDING. 



THE DECORATION OF THE EXPOSITION 25 

by Mr. D. C. French and Mr. Edward C. Potter, the 
former undertaking the figure work, and the latter 
the horses. Two pair of horses, led by classical fe- 
male figures, draw a high chariot with a male figure 
symbolizing the spirit of discovery of the fifteenth 
century, and pages on horseback flank the chariot on 
either side, enriching the composition so that it pre- 
sents a well-sustained mass from every possible 
point of view. This group is an achievement well 
worthy of its situation as the dominating embellish- 
ment of the great court with its wealth of sculpture 
and ornament. 

The terraces afford another inviting field for 
open-air decoration. Numerous pedestals have 
tempted the skill of the sculptors of the Quadriga to 
produce distinguished types of the horse and the 
bull, and formal antique vases on the balustrade and 
reproductions of the masterpieces of ancient statuary 
break the long lines of parapet and greensward. The 
graceful bridges spanning the canals are guarded by 
sculptured wild animals native of the United States, 
part of them by Mr. Edward Kemeys, others by Mr. 
A. P. Proctor, in appropriate contrast to the classical- 
ity of their surroundings and suggesting future pos- 
sibilities in sculpture inspired by similar motives. 
The eye cannot take in at a glance the sumptuous 
beauties of this grand court, even in its ragged state 
of partial finish, but roves from statue to column, 



2G SOME ARTISTS AT THE FAIR 

portal to terrace, resting agreeably on broad masses 
of rich color and on the gleaming reflections in the 
basin. Imagination can scarcely picture the scene 
with the addition of the festal features of fluttering 
banners, rich awnings, gayly decorated craft giving 
life and movement to the water front, and every- 
where the crowd of visitors all on recreation bent. 

The casual observer might well be pardoned 
for failing at first to mark how the grand pavilions 
and porticos of the Manufactures and Liberal Arts 
Building are accented by frequent spaces covered 
with artistic decoration. In each of the four corner 
pavilions there are two tympana, those on the south 
side having been given to Mr. Gari Melchers and 
Mr. Walter MacEwen to fill with a decorative de- 
siofn. Both these artists have made elaborate com- 
positions representing, in general terms, ''Music" 
and "Manufactures" and "The Arts of Peace," and 
"The Chase and the Manufacture of Weapons," re- 
spectively. 

In the foreground of " Music," at the left, a 
group of Satyrs pipes to a dancing cluster around 
the Muse Euterpe, and with various other person- 
ages make up a composition of great distinction of 
live and skilful arrangement. The second panel, 
which illustrates manufactures or textiles, is equally 
rich in groups, and in the background of both com- 
positions is continued a procession in the honor of 



THE DECORATION OF THE EXPOSITION 27 

Pallas Athena, who was credited by the Greeks with 
the invention of spinning. The general color gamut 
is light with an intricate harmony of delicate tones. 
The procession is silhouetted in bluish tones against 
a warm sky with the colors of early evening, the 
golden reflections touching the figures with beauti- 
ful lines of lio^ht. Mr. Melchers has followed out 
much the same general plan of color in a varied but 
well-sustained composition, so that the four tympana 
make, in a sense, a series of harmonious pictures. 

The four grand central portals of the Manufact- 
ures and Liberal Arts Building recall triumphant 
arches of Roman times. Each of these portals has 
a lofty central entrance with rich bas-reliefs by Mr. 
Bitter and smaller side arches under pendentive 
domes. These eiQ:ht domes have been filled with 
figure decorations, each by a different artist. Those 
on the south front of the building have been painted 
by Mr. J. Alden Weir and Mr. Robert Reid, who, 
with distinctly individual compositions, have har- 
monized their designs in a remarkably agreeable 
and skilful manner. Mr. Weir has chosen allecrori- 
cal female figures of " Decorative Art," " The Art 
of Painting," "Goldsmith's Art," and the "Art of 
Pottery." Each of these figures is seated on a bal- 
ustrade and is relieved against a sky of pale broken 
blue tones. Flying draperies and capitals of four 
orders of architecture serve to connect the lines of 



28 SOME ARTISTS AT THE FAIR 

the composition, which is further enriched by a cu- 
pid holding a tablet inscribed with the different arts 
and decorated with a wreath. The figures are laree 
and simple in line, and the general scheme of color 
is pale blue varied with purple and green, a com- 
bination suggested by the evanescent hues of Lake 
Michigan. Mr. Reid has also selected seated alle- 
gorical figures to carry out his ideas, with the addi- 
tion of four youths, one on the keystone of each 
arch, holding high above their heads wreaths and 
palm branches which meet and cross so as to form a 
band of decorative forms around the upper part of 
the dome. A semi-nude figure of a man with an 
anvil and wrought-iron shield represents '' Iron- 
working ; " a young girl in white resting one arm on 
a pedestal and the hand of the other arm touching 
a piece of carved stone, signifies '' Ornament; " an- 
other in purple, finishing a drawing of a scroll, 
suggests the principle of "Design," as applied to 
mechanical arts, and the fourth figure is readily in- 
terpreted as honoring the '' Textile Arts." In the 
east portal Mr. E. E. Simmons has placed a single 
figure of a man in each pendentive of the dome, 
symbolizing '' Wood Carving," '' Stone Cutting," 
*' Forging," and '' Mechanical Appliances." The gen- 
eral scheme is pale gray and flesh - colored tones 
relieved and accentuated by the forms of the tools 
and accessories appropriate to each figure. The 




i^^-'- 



-Lw^' 



J 




/ 



DECORATION," FIGURE BY C. S. KKIMIAKT. 



THE DECORATION OF THE EXPOSITION 31 

composition is bold in line, firm in outline, and 
original in conception. Mr. Kenyon Cox in the ad- 
jacent dome has worked so far in harmony with Mr. 
Simmons that he has decorated the pendentives 
rather than the upper part of the vault, placing a 
standing female figure in each against a balustrade 
and foliage. Above the heads, graceful banderoles, 
bearing the subjects illustrated, convert each pen- 
dentive into a shield - shaped space. A robust 
woman in buff jacket testing a sword, suggests 
"Steel Working." A graceful girl in blue and 
white drapery holding a rare vase needs no title 
to show^ that she represents " Ceramic Painting." 
" Building " is symbolized by a tall and shapely 
damsel in Q-olden Qrreen robes, standiuQ^ near an 
uncompleted wall, and " Spinning " by a stately 
maiden of fair complexion dressed in rose-colored 
stuffs, with the significant accessory of a spider-web. 
In the north portal Mr. J. Carroll Beckwith has il- 
lustrated the subject of Electricity as applied to 
Commerce. Four female figures occupy the pen- 
dentives. The "Telephone" and the "Indicator" 
are personified by a woman standing holding a 
telephone to her ear and surrounded by tape is- 
suing from the ticker; "The Arc Light" by a figure 
kneeline holdino^ aloft an arc liodit ; " The Morse 
Telegraph " by a woman in flying draperies seated 
at a table upon which is the operating machine, 



32 SOME ARTISTS AT THE FAIR 

while she reads from a book ; and " The Dynamo " 
by a woman of a type of the working-class seated 
upon the magnet with a revolving wheel and belt at 
her feet. Above, in the upper dome, is placed the 
" Spirit of Electricity," a figure of a boy at the top of 
the dome from which radiate rays of lightning, to 
which he points. Mr. Walter Shirlaw, who has dec- 
orated the neighboring dome, shows distinct orig- 
inality of conception in his four allegorical fig- 
ures, '' Gold," " Silver," '' Pearl," and " Coral," sym- 
bolizino- the abundance of the land and the sea. 
The maiden representing " Gold " steps forward 
freely, her mantle of yellow falling as she advances. 
A silver-gray cloak, fastened with silver disks, dis- 
tinguishes the figure of "Silver." " Pearl " stands 
erect with glistening pearls around her neck and on 
her garments. " Coral," with raised arms, places a 
coral ornament in her hair. A spider's web in dec- 
orative pattern connects the figures and occupies the 
central surface of the dome. White, green, and 
gold, treated in monotones, form the color plan. 

The figure on page 29 is taken from a sketch of 
one of Mr. C. S. Reinharts figures in the south 
dome of the West Portal, and was materially 
changed in the enlargement, and improved in ac- 
tion and accessories. The effort of the artist has 
been to bring all the separate tones into harmony 
with each other, making the design and color appro- 




THE armorer's CRAFT," ONE OF FOUR FIGURES BY E. H. BLASHFIELD, REPRESENTING 

THE ARTS OF METAL WORKING. 



THE DECORATION OF THE EXPOSITION 35 

priate to the purposes of the building, the architect- 
ure, and the construction of the pendentive dome it- 
self. A white-marble terrace describes a complete 
circle just above the four arches of the dome, the 
railing of which is a repetition of the actual one 
which finishes the top of the walls of the building it- 
self; above a vibrating blue sky, with touches of 
salmon pink ; in the pendentives four seated female 
figures, representing the Arts of Sculpture, Decora- 
tion, Embroidery, and Design. Between the figures 
and above the arches are urns with cactus, from 
which vines and flowers are trailing, thus uniting the 
composition. The treatment is mural — broad, flat 
tones within the severe contours. Above, in the sky, 
faint in color and harmonizing w^ith the sky itself, 
four cherubs are having a merry-go-round with pale 
ribbons. 

The pendentives of the adjacent dome, painted 
by Mr. E. H. Blashfield, are filled by four winged 
genii, representing the "Arts of Metal Working." 
The '' Armorer's Craft " is personified by a hel- 
meted figure ; the '' Brass Founder " and '' Iron 
Worker " by two half-nude youths, one holding an 
embossed trencher, the other a hammer, while a 
maiden, in the closely clinging gown of the fifteenth 
century, with a statuette in her hand, symbolizes the 
'* Art of the Goldsmith." The extreme points of the 
pendentives are filled by appropriate attributes, a 



36 SOME ARTISTS AT THE FAIR 

pair of gauntlets, brass workers' tools, a horse-shoe, 
and a medal. Behind the figures, and a little above 
their heads, is a fi'ieze of Renaissance scroll work, 
and the whole composition is bound together by fly- 
ing banderoles and by the sweep of the widely ex- 
tended wings. The centre of the dome is occupied 
by two winged infants supporting a shield. The 
general color scheme comprises a series of peacock 
blues, greens, and purples, brilliant white tones in 
wings and frieze, and pale blue of the sky as a back- 
ground to the composition. 

The sculpture groups on the roof of the Wom- 
an's Building, and the elaborate pediments executed 
by Miss Alice Rideout, with the Caryatides, by Miss 
Enid Yandell, were early finished and in place. The 
same is true of Lorado Taft's graceful groups and 
friezes which adorn the Horticultural Building, and 
of Mr. John J. Boyle's realistic and expressive em- 
bodiments of ideas suggested by the fertile theme of 
Transportation, and ranged in almost bewildering 
profusion around the building which bears that 
name. The regiment of statues on the Machinery 
Building, by Mr. M. A. Waagen and Mr. Robert 
Kraus, those on the Electricity Building, by Mr. J. 
A. Blankingship and Mr.. Henry A. MacNeil, the 
statue of Franklin, bv Mr. Carl Rohl-Smith, together 
with scores of other works of more or less impor- 
tance, would, if listed, make a long catalogue of in- 



THE DECORATION OF THE EXPOSITION 



37 



teresting objects of the sculptor's art. The immense 
numbers of these works, proportionate, of course, to 




FEMALE FIGURE FROM W. L. DODGE'S DECORATION IN THE 
ADMINISTRATION BUILDING. 

the colossal magnitude of the Exposition, forbid 
even the bare mention of them in detail. In addi- 
tion to this great mass of sculpture work executed 
for the special purpose of supplementing the archi- 



38 SOME ARTISTS AT THE FAIR 

lecture, it is intended to place at different places, 
notably in the Grand Court and on the grounds, 
and in the colonnades of the Art Building, selected 
examples of ancient sculpture, various reproduc- 
tions of antique monuments. 

An essential part of the decoration of the build- 
ing is, of course, the architectural details, the models 
of which have been executed by various parties, not- 
ably Ellin & Kitson, of New York, and Evans, of 
Boston, with distinguished taste and skill. The 
capitals, mouldings, and ornaments of Greek and 
Roman buildings have been accurately copied on a 
scale and in a manner never before attempted. A 
few short months ago there was in this country but 
a very limited number of full-sized reproductions of 
any of the notable details of ancient architecture. 
The cast of the great Jupiter Stator capital was, it is 
said, found in but a single architect's office. Now 
the whole range of details, from the beautiful Ionic 
capitals of the Temple of Minerva Polias to the 
mouldings of the Arch of Titus, are practically at the 
command of any architect and student. 

Much has been said and much written about the 
proper color to be given to the exteriors of the great 
edifices. Experience shows, even if reason had not 
already dictated the decision, that the nearer they 
are kept to white the better for the architecture. 
Every experiment which has been made to produce 






m 



/i 



J^^ 






§ 



BANNER ADOPTED FROM THE 
STANDARD OF SPAIN UNDER 
FERDINAND AND ISABELLA. 




BANNER ADOPTED FROM THE 
EXPEDITIONARY FLAG OF 
COLUMBUS. 



THE DECORATION OF THE EXPOSITION 41 

aesthetic effects of texture suggested by the usual 
treatment of plaster objects has resulted in partial or 
in total failure, and every time the warm white of the 
staff has been meddled with, its glory has departed. 
But the conditions imposed by the climate, by the 
impossibility of securing a homogeneous surface, 
and by the exposure and consequent discoloration of 
a certain portion of the work, have made it necessary 
to apply some sort of paint to all the buildings. Or- 
dinary white-lead and oil have been found to give 
the best results, for the irregular absorption of the 
staff and the weathering rapidly produce an agree- 
able, not too montonous an effect, and the surface 
deteriorates less rapidly after this treatment. The 
single notable exception to this simple scale of color 
is found on the Transportation Building, which was 
given to Healy and Millet, of Chicago, to cover with 
a polychromatic decoration, carrying out the original 
intention of the architects, and making it unique and 
splendid in appearance. All the statuary of this 
building was treated with bronze and other metals, 
the great portal, commonly called the " Golden 
Door," was exceedingly rich and gorgeous in effect, 
and the intricate ornamentation of the architectural 
relief decoration had an echo in the flat surfaces cov- 
ered with rich designs. 

The decoration of the Exposition would be in- 
complete without careful attention to the informal 



42 SOME ARTISTS AT THE FAIR 

and festive features, such as flags and awnings. 
Every building presented new conditions, and de- 
manded special study and design. A large propor- 
tion of the flag-staffs carried gonfalons or banners, 
but a certain number were reserved, naturally, for 
the United States flag and the flags of all nations. 
At various points large poles were planted in the 
ground, most of them for the purpose of displaying 
the Stars and Stripes, and a group of three poles, 
with ornate bases, elaborate flutings, and proper fini- 
als were placed in front of the Administration Build- 
ing. The middle pole to carry a United States flag 
of large dimensions, and flanked on either side by a 
large and sumptuous banner, one adapted from the 
expeditionary banner of Columbus, the other from 
the standard of Spain at the time of the discovery 
of America. 











^// 



r/ ,-4 trl^ ^^ 



v/^ ? 



TYPES AND PEOPLE AT THE FAIR 



t/ 



By J. A. Mitchell 

IT is no reflection on the Columbian show to con- 
fess that perhaps the pleasantest moments are 
those spent in resting one s rebelHous Hmbs upon 
a bench and in watching the crowd. It may be less 
novel and possibly less instructive than some other 
exhibits, but it is often more amusing. One realizes 
in studying this infinite stream of humanity how lit- 
tle he really knows, personally, of his own country- 
men. New types seem to have sprung into exist- 
ence for the sole purpose of appearing at this fair. 
It gives one a startling realization of the varying 
effects of climate, food, and mode of life upon our 
brothers and sisters. Voice, manner, color, size, 



U SOME ARTISTS AT THE EAIR 

shape, and mental fittings are so widely different as 
to suQ["Q-est varieties in race. But we are all Ameri- 
cans, and those from the interior are more American 
than the others. 

If the native Indian were of a reflective turn of 
mind, all this might awaken unpleasant thoughts. 
Judging from outside appearance, however, he has 
no thoughts whatever. He stalks solemnly about 
the grounds with a face as impassive as his wooden 
counterparts on Sixth. Avenue. And yet lie is the 
American. He is the only one among us who had 
ancestors to be discovered. He is the aboriginal ; 
the first occupant and owner; the only one here 
with an hereditary right to the country we are cele- 
brating. Perhaps the native realizes this in his own 
stolid fashion. As he stalks about among the daz- 
zling structures of the Fair, and tries, or more likely, 
does not try, to grasp the innumerable wonders of 
art and science that only annoy and confuse him, it 
may require a too exhausting mental effort to recall 
the fact that his own grandfather very likely pursued 
the bounding buffalo over the waste of prairie now 
covered by the city of Chicago. He, at least, if his 
education permitted it, could claim historic connec- 
tion with the country when Columbus came so near 
discovering it; whereas our own connection with 
the discoverer is certainly remote, and sometimes 
suggests (with the fact that he from \\'hom we ha\^e 



TYPES AND PEOPLE AT THE FAIR 



45 



named the Fair never actually saw this particular 
country) that we are taking liberties with his name. 

The unconquerable American desire to do things 
on a bigger scale than anybody else, which often 




TRYING TO GET THE BETTER OF THE NATIVE. 

results in our " bitino^ off more than we can chew," 
has again run away with us. There are many illus- 
trations of this enawinsf hunQ^er at the World's Fair. 
In fact the Fair itself, as a whole, comes painfully 
near being an illustration in point. A colossal en- 
terprise too vast and complex to permit of its attain- 



46 SOME ARTISTS AT THE EAIR 

ing a perfect finish in the time allowed, seems to 
give more joy to our occidental spirits than any pos- 
sible perfection on a smaller scale. Crudity has lit- 
tle terror for us. The whole scheme is so vast and 
comprehensive, and the scale so hopelessly mag- 
nificent, that the visitor finds he has neither the 
spirit, spine, nor legs to even partially take it in. In 
fact the farther he goes the more he realizes the fu- 
tility of the undertaking. And the hapless en- 
thusiast who proposes to see, even superficially, the 
more important exhibits, should be fitted with a 
wrought-iron spine, nerves of catgut, and one more 
summer. In all the departments, from the fine arts 
to canned tomatoes, there is more than enough in 
numbers and in area to wear out the energy and 
paralyze the brain. To visit the Fair with profit or 
comfort you must leave your sense of duty behind. 
Whoever goes there with intent to thoroughly " do 
it," is laying up for himself anguish of mind and the 
complete annihilation of his muscular and nervous 
force. It is far too big for any question of con- 
science to be allowed to enter in. Its bigness is 
beyond description. No words or pictures can tell 
the story of its size. Experience alone can teach it. 
You must go there day after day, to return at night 
with tired eyes and aching limbs, and with the bitter 
and ever-increasincr knowledo-e that as an exhibition 
you can never grasp it. Where other exhibitions 



TYPES AND PEOPLE AT THE FAIR 



47 



have been satisfied with a display of an hundred 
cubic feet of any special article, Chicago must have 
at least an acre. Of whatever the world has seen 
before this time it now sees larger specimens and 
more of them. This means for the visitor more 
steps, more fatigue, more confusion, more time, and 
more money. 




FAKIRS. 



But there is a good side to all this, if one can 
forget his physical fatigue. Few of us fully realize 
what the Fair is doiuQ: for this countrv aestheticallv. 
Not so much bv its art collections, for the averao["e 
AmiCrican sees, or can see, enough good paintings 
in the course of a year to bring up his standard to a 
respectable level if he so elects, but by the architect- 
ure of the buildino-s themselves. Unless the afore- 
mentioned " Average American " is an undeserving 



48 SOME ARTISTS AT THE FAIR 

barbarian who has made up his mind to prefer the 
wrong thing, these impressive monuments cannot 
fail to do him good. The honest beauty of their de- 
sign ought to stamp itself with sufficient force upon 
his dawning reason to make him see the crudity of 
the United States architecture in which he has wal- 
lowed up to date. No praise is too high for what 
Chicago has achieved in this direction. There are, 
of course, at the Fair some painful examples of what 
the untamed American architect loves to do, but he 
is fortunately in the minority. And the very con- 
trast he offers works for progress in the cause of 
good art and a higher standard. The United States 
Building, designed by a Government architect, is a 
melancholy warning. 

The more intimate one becomes with this partic- 
ular fair, the more forcibly he realizes the fact that 
we are, above all else, a practical people. After be- 
ing duly impressed by the gigantic proportions and 
artistic excellence of the buildings, for which no 
praise is too high, we come gradually to learn, as we 
meander amonor the exhibits, that those thinos 
which excite our surprise and curiosity are generally 
the results of ingenuity and manual skill. In those 
departments, for instance, relating to art, literature, 
and history, there is little to startle the traveller 
who is at all familiar with previous international 
shows. The best in the art galleries is, as usual, 



TYPES AND PEOPLE AT THE FAIR 49 

from Europe. There is no dodging the fact that the 
average American is not overladen with the artistic 
sense. His enthusiasm runs in other directions. 
When it comes to the outward manifestations of hu- 
man ingenuity, lie is " on deck ; " he is " in it " and 
"with you." The application of electricity to filling 
teeth, or converting sawdust into table-butter, kin- 
dles in his bosom an excitement he never experi- 
enced in the art department. It certainly seems, 
after a visit to the electricity and machinery, that hu- 
man hands can do nothing that is not more quickly 
accomplished by some machine. Not only this, but 
time and distance count for nothing, and, if we keep 
on as we have started, the day will soon be here 
when the man in Maine can shake hands with his 
friend in Arizona. Already the sun is a hard-work- 
ing slave. Light, air, water, and in fact all nature, 
seems cruelly overworked. If she ever strikes, it 
will be an awkward period for us. These mechan- 
ical and scientific surprises make it interesting to 
speculate as to possible sights at our next grand 
exhibition, say twenty years hence. The man in 
China, for instance, need not go to the future fair at 
all. He will probably be able to see and hear it all 
at home. If he does ^o he can return to Shanohai 
for his lunch. 

But the American as seen at this fair, although 
first of all practical, is not, from another point of 



50 SOME ARTISTS AT THE FAIR 

view, SO far behind in his artistic sense as we are in 
the habit of considering him. In the first place, he 
is found, as a rule, standing before the best paintings 
and passing by the poorer ones. Those galleries 
containing the finest works are invariably the most 
crowded. And this is the greatest compliment we 
can pay ourselves. If, on the other hand, enthusias- 
tic groups collected about the impressionists, and 
took pleasure in the purple and yellow "eff'ects," that 
are sprinkled about the French and American sec- 
tions, there would be cause for anxiety. But such is 
not the case. That the impressionists still count 
their warmest admirers among themselves, their 
wives, sisters, and aunts, is a hopeful sign. As a 
people, we take many things less seriously than 
some of our contemporaries, but in matters of art 
we like it with a purpose. Too little clothing still 
strikes us as frivolous and improper. Blood, vio- 
lence, and all unpleasantness are sometimes histori- 
cally instructive, but, as a rule, we are fond of com- 
fortable subjects. We still like a taste of sugar in 
our art. 

But the brio-htest sio^n of all is the universal and 
hearty appreciation by the multitude of the buildings 
themselves. The expressions of delight by those 
who see for the first time these marvels of archi- 
tectural beauty, indicate at least a capacity for artis- 
tic enjoyment. In fact, the American who steps for 



TYPES AND PEOPLE AT THE FAIR 51 

the first time upon the borders of the Grand Basin, 
and looks upon the scene before him without a 
tingle of pride and pleasure is not of the stuff he 
should be. No words can give a just idea of the 
magnificence and restful beauty of this gigantic 
achievement. Rome and Greece were of marble 
and built for a more serious purpose. This is a city 
for a single summer. As such it is a complete and 
glorious triumph. 

There is nothin^: like a colossal exhibition to 
emphasize the disastrous effects of wealth upon the 
human spirit. Your friend with plenty of money 
goes to the Fair because others do and because he 
hates to be "out of it." He reaches Chicao'o in a 

o 

palace car, occupies luxurious rooms at a comfort- 
able and expensive hotel, takes a carriage when 
others walk, and at the exhibition itself derives pleas- 
ure only from those things that are unexpectedly 
novel. And to him such sights are few and such 
sensations rare. What he does realize, however, 
continually and with force, is the enormity of the 
crowd with its thoughtless persistence in holding the 
best places in front of those exhibits he wishes to 
see himself Moreover, there is an ever-increasing 
sense of physical discomfort, and that is something 
your moneyed friend is slow to forgive. But he does 
his duty, and he is glad above all to get home again. 



52 



SOME ARTISTS AT THE EAIR 



But how different with your less prosperous 
friend, who has been economizing for months in 
order to get there ! It being an expensive business, 
his time is Hmited, and he drinks it in through all 
his senses, excitedly and with large gulps. It is 
hard work, but how interesting ! That dull pain 
which overtakes the great majority of sightseers soon 
catches him in the back of his neck, but as long as he 
can see, hear, and walk, he profits by his opportuni- 
ties. And he goes to. his home mentally refreshed, 
a broader and a wiser man. He has gained an ex- 
perience he would not exchange for many dollars. 

An unlooked-for feature of the exhibition is the 
profusion of newly married couples. Whether all 

this individual ecstasy adds gay- 
ety or mournful ness to the Fair 
depends, of course, entirely upon 
the point of view from which the 
victims are regarded. It is evi- 
dent that many happy grooms have 
considered this a chance to kill 
two birds with one stone, and, as 
far as one can judge results from 
outward appearances, there is no 
question as to the practical work- 
ing of the scheme. The happy 
couple find themselves in a sort of fairy land, wan- 
dering about among countless strangers, whose very 




A BRIDE AND GROOM. 



TYPES AND PEOPLE AT THE FAIR 53 

/ numbers seem to lend security and to harden the 
over-sensitive soul. The crowd also seems to create 
a feelino; of isolation which the innermost recesses 
of a virgin forest could never supply. Moreover, 
there is here so much else to occupy the attention 
of the usually obnoxious public that the bride and 
groom can hold hands with absolute security and 
be as bold or blushing as their temperaments may 
demand. 

The rolling-chairs that run about- the grounds 
and through the buildings are the salvation of many 
a fainting spirit. To thousands of human beings 
with nothino- but a human back and human leo-s the 
fair would be a failure without them. They are sup- 
port for the weary, strength for the weak, and hope 
and a new life for the despairing. The guides who 
navigate them are, as a rule, college students, profit- 
ing by this opportunity to see the fair and to secure 
additional dollars toward completing their studies. 
The result is, for the occupant of the chair, an intelli- 
gent and agreeable companion, who is ready and 
willing to give any information he may possess. 
And besides, they are neither sharks nor liars, but 
fair and honorable respecters of truth. There is 
sometimes a contrast in manners and education be- 
tween the occupant of the chair and the man behind 
that is not in favor of the former. When one sees 
what is evidently a citizen with far more money than 



54 



SOME ARTISTS AT THE FAIR 







brains, and without the faintest appreciation of the 
beauties that encompass him, wheeled about at 
seventy-five cents an hour by a youth so far his su- 
perior that any comparison is impos- 
sible, it causes one to realize that 
Fortune is indeed an irresponsible 
<^^ ,1 ^ flirt, who is never so happy as w^hen 

domg the wrong thmg. 
A not uncommon 
sight, and one of the 
countless illustra- 
tions of what an 
excellent husband 
the American be- 
comes when proper- 
ly trained, is that of 
the weary, uninterested 
man, lingering patient- 
ly among laces, china, 
and views of Switzer- 
land. His heart all the 
while is off with the machinery, possibly with that 
more than human little machine that winds the cot- 
ton on the spools. Such cases are, of course, offset 
by the devoted women who wear themselves out 
in tramping through soulless acres of agricultural 
products, locomotives, wagons, models of ships, and 
all the other follies that appeal to man. 




TYPES AND PEOPLE AT THE FAIR 55 

The burning question of the hour for the visitor 
from another city is the question of finance. He 
who is worth his milHon and intends spending a 
fortnight in Chicago, will do well to take his million 
with him. He may bring some of it away, but that 
will depend entirely upon his own capacity for econ- 
omy. Before registering at the hotel let him be sure 
to secure his return ticket, for it is a long walk from 
Chicaoo to New York. These remarks are not in- 
tended to discourage all who are not millionaires 
from visiting the exhibition. It can be done with 
less money. The writer has himself accomplished it. 
In fact, it is only fair to say that many of the stories 
of extortion which have come from the White City 
are much exao'o-erated. The most successful brio- 
ands are in the city of Chicago, and not at the Fair. 

The writer can testify, from his own personal ex- 
perience, that a very good lunch can be procured in 
the State of Illinois for less than one hundred dol- 
lars. Thirty dollars is more than enough for a 
sandwich, and a glass of water can be purchased 
anywhere for less than ninety cents. While to walk 
by the cafes and restaurants and look upon others 
who are eating, costs the promenader nothing what- 
ever. But these moderate prices do not obtain at 
your hotel. The object of keeping a hotel is, like 
some other occupations, partly to make money. 
The Chicago hotel-keeper does not ignore this fact. 



a.^ 




THE QUESTION OF FINANCE. 



His ideas of the relation of profit to expenditure are 
well calculated to startle the guest of reasonable ex- 
pectations. If the guest is not overweeningly am- 
bitious and is satisfied to sleep in a closet or hang 
from the stairs, his expenses need be no greater than 
if he occupied a handsome suite of rooms at any 
first-class New York hotel. But if he insists on hav- 
ing a real chamber, larger even than his own bath- 
room at home, and with a real window in it, then he 
must pay. And it is then that he begins to dis- 
cover why his landlord keeps a hotel. Any previ- 
ous extravagances in the way of horses, real estate. 



TYPES AXD PEOPLE AT THE EAIR 



57 



or precious stones are as nothing to the present out- 
lay. He finds that the rate per diem is, as far as he 
can judge, based upon the supposition that the hotel 
is to be closed to-morrow and must be paid for to- 
day. And real estate is hio^h, even in ChicaQ'o. In 
matters of nourishment, the wealth of Ormus is of 
no avail, unless the waiter receives a tip exceeding 
in value the handsomest Christmas present ever 
eiven to a dearest friend. 

W^ithin the grounds there is little extortion, 
thanks to the firmness of the ruling powers. 

But let not the Chicagoan whose eye may fall 
upon these lines suppose for an instant that they are 
intended as reflections on his character. The city 
that secured the prize is simply fulfilling its inevita- 




CAFlfi IX THE MIDWAY PLAISANCE. 



58 SOME ARTISTS AT THE FAIR 

ble destiny. Had New York drawn the plum we 
should have witnessed a worse extortion, with the 
added mortification of a much inferior exhibition. 
Moreover, there is no public spirit in New York, and 
there is a Qreat deal of it in Chicago. This senti- 
ment alone is more than enough to make the differ- 
ence between success and failure. The woods are 
full of citizens willino^ to beo^in at sunrise and dis- 
course to you until midnight of the wonders of 
Chicago. In ordinary times this burning desire to 
impart just that kind of information is not always 
appreciated by the outside world ; but in times of 
fairs the spirit that prompts it becomes a mighty en- 
gine. It was soon demonstrated that these citizens 
could work as well as talk, and as a result the White 
City has risen as from a fairy's wand. 

The important question for the individual citizen 
is whether it is worth his while to go to this fair. 
And this, of course, depends altogether upon his 
purse, his stomach, his back, his legs, nerves, wife, 
children, and business. He may never have another 
such opportunity for mental expansion and physical 
discomfort. It is a marvel of architectural beauty. 
It is days of instruction, of art and science, of 
surprise and exasperation, of mental development, 
fatigue, and financial ruin. In the end his personal 
preferences, however, \\A\\ probably have little to do 
with it. All the world are going, and he must go too. 



THE ART OF THE WHITE CITY 

By Will H. Low 

ON the way west to the White City, to " the 
stately pleasure-dome decreed," where the 
arts of civilization by the unwritten law of 
International Expositions hold their court, the ob- 
servant traveller finds abundant food for thought. 
Beyond Niagara, assuming his point of departure 
to be New York, he sees in the landscape through 
which he is whirled a continuous sweep of flat farm- 
ing land, but little water ; fences everywhere, trees 
sparsely scattered, and plain box-like houses tell- 
ing only of shelter ; abundant barns differing little 
from the dwellings, and from time to time towns of 
varied nomenclature ranging from Delhi to Kalama- 
zoo. Through the horizontal blur caused by the 
speed of the train through w^hich all this is seen, 
there appear, principally about the stations, figures 
which lend a languid interest to the dead level of 
monotony. 

The human interest of the picture, however, tells 
the same story as the landscape — a story of hard 
work, of material reward, an acquiescence in the law 



60 SOME ARTISTS AT THE FAIR 

by which labor gains bread and shelter, and little 
else. Occasionally, in the immediate vicinity of the 
stations, there is some attempt at adornment, gen- 
erally confined to "tidying up" the surroundings; 
but around the farm-houses few or no flowers, lit- 
tle or no attempt to beautify the home, nothing of 
the almost frantic suburban effort of the East which 
has made the country kaleidoscopically varied with 
color, for the most part bad, yet giving hope that the 
next generation will do better, and pointing at least 
to a desire for beauty. Individual effort, unseen 
along the route, may be slandered by the preceding, 
but such for many monotonous miles seemed the 
foreground of the picture we were journeying to 
see. 

At last a plain, varied by marshes, through which 
boarded walks runnino^ at ricrht anodes, with an oc- 
casional house here and there, testified to the vari- 
ous suburban excrescences of a great city; then a 
dome or two, towers, flags fluttering in the sun, in- 
numerable trains, clanQ"or of bells and shriekino- 
of whistles ; and with Chicago seven miles away, 
hidden in a pall of smoke, the White City was at 
hand. 

There are certain mastering impressions in one's 
life, certain scenes which stamp the memory, and, 
like the priceless kakemono which the reverent Jap- 
anese withdraws from hidiuQ- when in the mood to 




LIGHTING THE NATL-RAL GAS TORCHES OX THE ROOF OF THE ADMINISTRATION lUII.DING. 



THE ART OF THE WHITE CITY 63 

enjoy it, rise obedient to one's thought in aftertime. 
Such a memory is that of a first sunny morning in 
Paris : a ride fi-om the Madeleine across the Place 
de la Concorde, along the Tuileries Gardens and the 
Louvre, across the Seine with the island and Notre 
Dame in the distance, and then through older Paris 
to the gardens of the Luxembourg. Or again, a cer- 
tain early moonlit evening in Florence, with the 
Duomo looming at the end of the street, Giotto's 
Campanile standing sentinel at its side, the narrow 
street to the Piazza della Sio^noria with its Palazzo 
Vecchio and the Loggia dei Lanzi, thence by the 
side of the Uffizi to the Arno and across the Ponte 
Vecchio up to the Pitti Palace. These memories, 
common to so many, are often gained on ground 
made familiar through study of guide-books and 
photographs which, instead of dulling realization, 
add to it the zest of more thorough appreciation. 
In like manner, study, discussion, photographs, and 
engravings prepare one for the Columbian Exposi- 
tion ; but the first few hours of livinQ: in its archi- 
tectural dreamland gives reality to the shadowy pre- 
conception, and adds the priceless gift of another 
masterpiece to memory's picture-gallery. 

It is probably impracticable in any case, and 
when we think of the transformation that this prairie 
has witnessed in two short years, quite impossible, 
in the case of the Exposition, to keep the approaches 



64 



SOME ARTISTS AT THE EAIR 



of a great popular resort in any degree beautiful 
Here we have on the land side of the Fair the usual 

a s s e m b 1 a Q- e of 
cheap shows, lem- 
onade venders, and 
the like, which line 
the unsightly fence 
and make up what 
a friend has dubbed 
the Sideway Un- 
pleasant. The 
fence is hard to par- 
don in a land where 
energy is predomi- 
nant, desire to do 
the best not want- 
ing, and staff 2ih\in' 
dant. A hio-h white 
wall enclosino- the 

o 

substantial fabric of their dream would have done 
much to give the western approach something of the 
festal maomificence w-hich the architects have Q-iven 
to the entrance by the Peristyle at the lake side. 

But once within, to pick flaws criticism must take 
a higher flight than one, frankly astonished at the 
goodness of it all, is disposed to permit it to. Noth- 
ing is perfect in this mundane sphere, but this effort 
on lines as yet untrodden by these States has such 




AT NIGHT ON THE MIDWAY PLAISANCE. 



THE ART OF THE WHITE CITY 



65 




measure of success that one is proud to feel that this 
has been done in our own time, in one's own country, 
by men of one's own race — the race that peoples our 
seaboard, fills our ^ 



man u facturing 
towms, tills our great 
farms, and stretching 
westward extracts pre- 
cious metals here and 
cultivates oranQ:e-ofroves 
and vineyards there; 
the race which is daily 
uroed, on the *' whale- 
back " steamer from the 
city to the Fair, to pur- 
chase its chewing-gum before the boat starts, as 
none is sold after leaving the pier ; the race that 
is so cosmopolitan, so made up from strange and 
opposing elements, and is withal so homogeneous, 
so American — and proud, above all, to feel that this 
curious people have had, at the crucial moment, the 
good sense to be inconsistent, to make haste slowly, 
to defer to the few, to make their Exposition the 
most beautiful before setting to work to make it, as 
things needs must be here, the biggest in all crea- 
tion. 

To be of this race and a follower of the arts ; to 
have noted for years the growth of public desire for 



/LL- FRENCH V-cOo'n 
'A^ e^P0ilTlO^tLHJ 



INDIAN GIRL AND BULL, MODKLLED BY 
FRENCH & POTTER. 



G(j 



SOME ARTISTS AT THE EAIR 



• ' ""' ' y * "-' *s i i fv ' v 'y ' - .iT'"^^^ 






■/Tr 







art and the frequent 
lapses to indifference 
on its part ; to have 
seen that our artists as 
they grow in strength 
and numbers claimed 
the rierht to do some- 
thino" laro'er and finer 
and better than the pri- 
vate house, the portrait 
statue, or the genre 
picture ; and then to 
come here, where for 
the first time they have 
found opportunity, and 
where the alliance of 
architecture, sculpture, 
and painting has pro- 
duced its first work, to 
find that first work sur- 
prisingly good, is to 
feel proud not alone 
for the valiant crafts- 
men who have pro- 
duced this result, but 
for the country at large 
which has stood behind 
them, and above all 



THE ART OF THE WHITE CITY 67 

for the solid men of the city of Chicago who have 
planned the work so bravely and so wisely. So 
many elements enter into an enterprise of this kind 
that to a community like ours (unaided by a parental 
government which, as in France, takes upon itself, 
as one of its functions, the provision of public pa- 
geant and amusement, and keeps as it were all the 
material in stock) the problem was more than diffi- 
cult, and the solution, solved as it has been, most 
surprising. Eighteen months ago in Paris, as I 
stood with a French friend in the shadow of the Eif- 
fel Tower, he said, indicating the colossal construc- 
tion, " I suppose that at Chicago you will have a 
tower bigger than that^ and that your exposition will 
be a triumph of that sort of thing." '' I suppose that 
it may," was the answer ; but the tower which is 
such a blot on Paris, diminishing in scale her most 
beautiful monuments, is nowhere to be seen in Chi- 
cao^o, and thouo^h the bones and sinews of the Lib- 
eral Arts building may be a " triumph of that sort of 
thing," its flesh of staff effectively covers and adorns 
it without concealment of construction or strength, 
but with due consideration paid to beauty. 

To house the exhibits, to provide for instruction, 
and to make a pleasure-ground for the people (it 
could be urged from a utilitarian point of view) 
might indeed have been done more simply, or, as 
the phrase runs, in a more " business-like " way. 



68 SOME ARTISTS AT THE FAIR 

One ruQ-o-ed old farmer I overheard, as I stood lean- 
ino; on the balustrade at the back of the MacMon- 
nies fountain, as he pulled his wife away from the 
contemplation of the charming group of mermaids 
and sea-babies who disport themselves in the wake 
of Columbia's triumphal galley, "Come along, Maria, 
I never see no use in them thinos ; women with 
fishes' tails." Maria went along, but I fancied that 
Maria's daughter lingered a moment, and she may 
have found the " use " of the artist in the social sys- 
tem. At any rate, the Chicago business man who 
individually and collectively represents the controll- 
ing power of this vast enterprise knew the use of 
beauty, and with the sagacity born of commercial 
success called to his aid the men most eminent in 
their professions, and then — left them alone. 

Arguing without absolute knowledge, is it not 
easy to imagine that many times during the two 
years spent in constructing these superb structures, 
the heart of the business man must have failed him 
in seeing this child of his creation grow in beauty 
and strength to be sure, but at a cost of so many 
millions ? No record exists, it is safe to say, of any 
questioning. The artists had been called in, they 
were doing their work loyally; and no less loyally, 
through financial crisis, business depression, and 
public indifference, the business man performed his 
part of the contract. He had pledged himself to the 



THE ART OF THE WHITE CITY 69 

whole country to do his best, the pledge had been 
given and accepted in the hour when he bore the 
coveted privilege to hold the Exposition away from 
competing cities, and the Court of Honor shows 
how well the pledge has been kept. A detail of or- 
ganization, one of the many which would make 
the history of the Exposition most interesting if 
written, was told the other day, and is so character- 
istic of the spirit in which the Fair has been put 
through, that it is worth incorporating" here. At a 
time when the Exposition had reached the limits 
of all possible insurance, when every sound in- 
surance company in the world w^as carrying all the 
risks it was able to take, the Exposition concluded 
to do its own insurance, the details of which pro- 
cedure need not be gone into here. At this time 
there w^ere a number of pictures, about nine in all, 
which had been promised for the Loan Collection of 
Foreign Masterpieces, and were not forthcoming be- 
cause of the inability of the Exposition to procure 
special insurance policies which had been promised 
when, long before, the owners of the pictures had 
consented to lend them. There seemed no way out 
of the difficulty, when the simple question was asked 
of the head of the Art Department, if it was essen- 
tial to the completeness of the Loan Collection that 
these pictures should be in it? To which was an- 
swered, that if not essential, it was at least desir- 



70 SOME ARTISTS AT THE FAIR 

able ; whereat this business man gave instructions 
that the owners of the pictures be at once communi- 
cated with and informed that he would personally 
guarantee them against loss if they would allow the 
pictures to come. As this little show of public spirit 
involved a personal liability of over two hundred 
thousand dollars, the figures may be considered elo- 
quent enough to find place in such a paper as this. 

The wisdom of a large policy is to be found on 
every hand. The Exposition has been called a 
dream, and as it is so soon to vanish may w^ell be 
one ; but if the intent had been to deceive, it could 
hardly have been made more deceptive. To one in 
the gondolas or the launches speeding between 
these walls, they stand as though for all time ; and 
for one walking in the long arcades, detail and 
veracity of construction force themselves on the at- 
tention most plausibly. It has been too often de- 
scribed how the architects, adopting certain dimen- 
sions, have obtained a conformity of eff'ect ; but that 
once obtained, they have shown the greatest free- 
dom, and though all of them are men of many 
works, they have never perhaps been more happily 
inspired. The Administration building is the appro- 
priate crown to the buildings leading up to it, and 
Mr. McKim's Agricultural building is characterized 
by great charm of proportion, and though heavily 
charged with sculptured decoration is in nowise 



THE ART OF THE WHITE CITY 71 

overloaded. In addition to the very decorative 
sculptures due to Mr. Martiny, there is on this build- 
ing some of the most satisfactory ornament in purely 
classical vein that I can remember on any modern 
structure. In fact, though the treatment of this 
group of buildings is thoroughly classic, it is pleas- 
ant to record the belief that in no other country 
would the traditions have been so well observed and 
at the same time so revivified as in ours. Our men 
owe their education to the Old World, chiefly to 
France ; but it seems as though a certain separation 
from the influences of their schools had given them 
an independence which their foreign schoolmates 
lack. It is probable that had Paris in 1889 adopted 
the programme followed here the result would have 
been as correct, as thorough, as noble as this ; but 
the result as a whole would have been colder, and 
lacking in the individual character observable here, 
where every man seems to continue the tradition 
rather than follow it. Mr. Post had long accus- 
tomed us to his capacity to build big and well ; but 
never to build so bio" and so well as in the Liberal 
Arts buildinor. When sailiuQ- alon^r the lake-front 
one appreciates the immensity of the structure, which 
seems to equal that of all the other buildings com- 
bined ; but near at hand one feels its beautv more 
than its bigness, and the simplicity by which this 
result is arrived at. The portals, taking almost all 



72 SOME ARTISTS AT THE FAIR 

the decorative features, are admirable. Mr. At- 
wood s F'ine Arts building is perhaps the best where 
all is so ^'ood, owin^; almost nothiiiQ- to its decora- 
tive features — which, as the building is to be per- 
manent, one may hope to see changed. The frieze 
of the Parthenon should hardly be borrowed to 
grace so fine a modern building. At night Mr. At- 
wood's building is seen in all its beauty of propor- 
tion, and the nights when it is illuminated best of 
all. The torches running along the top of the build- 
ino' burn o-reat flames of natural oas, and the illumi- 
nation is at once simple and effective. On the roof 
of the Administration buildinQ- somethinQ- of the 
same effect is obtained in conjunction with the elec- 
tric lioht outlinino[' the dome ; but as the torches on 
the Fine Arts building are seen against the sky, the 
effect is finer. 

Night and electric light play a great part in the 
spectacular side of the Fair. Solomon in all his 
glory never saw such a sight as the plain people of 
this continent have had on illumination nights this 
summer. Innumerable incandescent lights sparkle 
along the cornices and pediments ; the top of the 
wall inclosinix the Q-rand basin is outlined in fire; 
search-lights from the top of the Liberal Arts build- 
ino- cut their wide swaths of liQ-ht in Q-io-antic cir- 
cles, resting for a moment here and there to bring 
out now this detail or to throw into dazzling relief a 




CENTRAL PORTION OF MACMONNIES FOUNTAIN — EFFECT OF ELECTRIC-LIGHT. 



THE ART OF THE WHITE CITY 75 

sculptured figure or beast. It lingers longest on 
MacMonnies s fountain, the fitting jewel resting 
lightly on the bosom of this Venetian beauty whom 
but yesterday we called Chicago ; and well it may, 
as in a degree the fountain is the cloit of the Exposi- 
tion. It seems but fair to call this fountain the most 
important of all the decorative sculptures. Every ex- 
position has its great fountain, and the choice of Mr. 
MacMonnies to execute this one w^as most happy. 
Our sculptors as a rule have had too little oppor- 
tunity to exercise the decorative side of their art, 
and we do not possess as does France a small army 
of sculptors who can be, as they were in '89, turned 
loose to decorate a great exposition with groups and 
figures. It demands not only a decorative instinct 
but practice as well, a certain habit of and delight 
in handling huge masses of form which men who 
are capable perhaps of graver and more ponderated 
work may lack or have lost. Thus fifteen years ago 
Saint-Gaudens, fresh from school and filled with its 
traditions, would have in the course of natural selec- 
tion been the man for the work ; but with years and 
widening experience it is a question whether he 
would have undertaken to design and carry out in the 
short space of time that which his brilliant pupil has 
undertaken and carried throuo^h with all the audac- 
ity and fire of youth, tempered by a delicacy of taste 
which gives it after all its greatest value. Anything 



76 SOME ARTISTS AT THE FAIR 

more typical of the youth and hope which wc fondly 
believe to be the characteristic of our nation is hard 
to conceive ; and if, as is to be so greatly desired, 
the monument is to be made permanent (which the 
completeness of the modelling of individual parts, 
an unusual quality in works like this, would render 
easy), it might well stand to represent an era. Mr. 
French's massive and dio^nified fio[-ure of America 
may be taken as the matron of this generation, tried 
and made strong through war; but MacMonnies s 
epitome of youth represents the future of our as yet 
experimental civilization, and though the boat is pro- 
pelled by the arts and sciences, it is the young girl 
who fills such a large part in our experiment who is 
really to the fore. It is Smith and Wellesley who 
row with the young girl enthroned ; and vogue laga- 
/ere.with pleasant waters ahead and a safe port at last! 
Of Mr. Saint-Gaudens we have only a figure of 
Columbus, which he has signed in collaboration 
with another of his pupils. Miss Mary G. Lawrence. 
It is a good exemplification of what has already been 
said that at the first glance this figure seems almost 
out of place here. It is of a character — the highest 
character — of work which depends on the most seri- 
ous study. Conception and pose are reduced to the 
simplest, almost archaic form, and while it does not 
seem quite as successful, it is of the same family as 
the Lincoln here in Chicago or the Deacon Chapin 



THE ART OF THE WHITE CITY 77 

in Springfield. The best of the sculpture here, while 
subject to the limitations twice mentioned, has per- 
haps gained a quality more essentially American by 
the absence of what may be called the ready-made 
decorative quality. The quadriga on the Peristyle, 
by French & Potter, the Indian girl and the bull, 
and indeed all the figures and animals at which 
these artists have worked together, are thoroughly 
satisfactory as decoration, and more native and ap- 
propriate to our soil than the lighter touch and 
greater facility of the sculpture at the exhibition on 
the Champ de Mars would have been. 

The painters of the band of allied artists had the 
more difficult task. In the first place our country 
has arbitrarily forced our painters to work on a 
miniature scale, and with little exception our men 
affronted their task with theory and enthusiasm as 
their preparation. The sculptors had at least the 
practice of modelling large works ; but with the ex- 
ception of Mr. Maynard, who has taken Pompeian 
motives and given us under the porches of the 
Agricultural building a thoroughly architectural and 
adequate decoration in which his past experience 
has rendered him service, the painters were virtually 
winning their first spurs. Taking this into consid- 
eration their success is marked. Tried by the stand- 
ard that the space allotted to a decoration should be 
filled, and filled by a composition which could not 



78 SOME ARTISTS AT THE EAIR 

serv^e within any other shaped space than that for 
which it is devised, Mr. Blashfield's seems the most 
successful. In addition to this quaUty it has great 
charm of color and dignity of conception, which lat- 
ter quality, combined with clean, workmanlike draw- 
ing, is shared by Mr. Cox. Mr. Reid's and Mr. Weir's 
domes also have charming qualities, while Mr. Shir- 
law's gives one the impression of a complete mastery 
of his scheme and intention. At the southern end 
of the Liberal Arts building, Mr. Melchers and Mr. 
McEw^en have large compositions, those of the lat- 
ter being marked perhaps by the greater individual- 
ity ; but while they are all (each painter having two 
compositions) executed in a very able manner, they 
seem somewhat lacking in spontaneity. In another 
part of the grounds in the Women's building the 
feminine contingent makes a brave show. Mrs. Mac- 
Monnies here leads the van with a composition sober 
in line and excellent in color. Miss Cassatt, having 
apparently defied the laws of decoration, has divided 
her space in three parts, in each of which she has 
painted pictures which, from her previous w^ork, must 
be judged to be of excellent quality, but which, from 
the height at w^hich they are seen and by reason of 
the small scale of the figures, are virtually lost. But 
this partial and cursory enumeration of w^hat may be 
seen at the Fair could be continued beyond the lim- 
its of an article like this, and still leave unnamed 



THE ART OF THE WHITE CITY 79 

and apparently unappreciated much that is admir- 
able and more that is hopeful. Of the delights of 
living in the midst of this, of seeing our people in 
holiday trim and, albeit, taking their pleasure some- 
what sadly and getting as much instruction com- 
bined with it as possible, still enjoying it, much 
could be said. No mention has been made of the 
State buildings, which give, however, so much char- 
acter to the grounds. New York's imperial palace, 
bright and luxurious, is flanked on one side by Mas- 
sachusetts's staid and trim reproduction of John 
Hancock's mansion, with additions of a character 
which must temper the smile of gentle reproof with 
which it regards its frivolous neighbor ; while on the 
other stands Pennsylvania's broad piazzaed home 
which shelters the Liberty bell. New Jersey repro- 
duces a colonial *' Head -quarters " mansion, and 
Washington is big and new and booming ; Cali- 
fornia shows her fruits and extols her wines in a low- 
lying structure which recalls the adobe missions of 
her first settlers ; and each and every State has here 
its home, first for its own people and then for the 
neighbors. Strange neighbors we have too, for the 
Midway Plaisance is not far away with its turbaned, 
sandalled, greased, and befeathered inhabitants, with 
its German and Austrian bands, its great difference 
of tongues and great similarity of cttisme. The out- 
door life which is made so much of in Europe here 



80 SOME ARTISTS AT THE EAIR 

seems unappreciated ; the numberless cafes and out- 
of-door restaurants which make up so much of the 
comfort with which one sees an exposition there still 
" leave to be desired " here. But these are details 
and of things earthy. The moral of the tale is short 
and easily read. 

Our work-a-day nation awakened, it has been 
frequently said, to knowledge of the existence of art 
as a factor in life at Philadelphia seventeen years 
ago, and here and now attains as it were its major- 
ity. We may leave out our exhibit in the Fine Arts 
building proper, with the mere registration of the 
fact that by general consent it holds its own as well 
or better than close students of our art have known 
that it has done for several years past. The exhibi- 
tion, or that part controlled by the Columbian Com- 
mission, is our best sign of progress, nay, of achieve- 
ment. It has proved that throughout the land when 
occasion arises to build, to carve, or to paint, we 
have the men to do it. Art hath her victories no 
less than commerce ; the qualities which have given 
us our place among nations, now that the struggle is 
past, are turned in gentler paths ; and that which was 
prophecy so short a time ago is now truth realized : 

" Following the sun, westward the march of power, 
The rose of might blooms in our new-world mart ; 
But see just bursting forth from bud to flower 
A late, slow erowth, the fairer rose of art." 










'^^'Wssf 



FOREGROUND AND VISTA 
AT THE FAIR 

By IV. Hamilton Gibson 



Y the time this brief sketch shall 
have appeared in print the world's 
greatest international fair will 
have thrown open its gates to 
the impatient multitudes, and mill- 
ions will have looked with rapture 
upon its impressive perspectives of pal- 
aces and enjoyed their treasures. Even 
to the great general public, who are as 
yet awaiting with eager anticipation the 
indispensable outing at the Fair, its surpassing ar- 
chitectural features are already enticingly familiar. 
The "White City" is already a heritage of delight 
and inspiration to a vast multitude who have spent 
their available days beneath the spell of its enchant- 
ment. 

It is no small thing thus to have penetrated the 
veil, as it were, as is here actually done for many — 



82 SOME ARTISTS AT THE EAIR 

to have materialized a vision — to have embodied a 
paradise. The " Heavenly City," the " New Jerusa- 
lem," with gates of gold and pearl, which in one 
questionable shape or another hovers in the hope- 
ful, faithful fancy of so many of the sons of Adam 
will here find a realization, supplanting or exalting 
the ideal which has hitherto not always been to the 
glory of Heaven. 

But in thus paying tribute to the architect we 
are perhaps unconsciously crediting him with more 
than his due; certainly more than he would him- 
self claim. Of what avail were beautiful palaces 
if they could not be seen ? and how easily might 
such an assemblage of heroic structures such as 
these at Jackson Park, as in previous similar exposi- 
tions, have been so disposed, with relation to each 
other and their environment, as to have completely 
lost not only their individual impressiveness but the 
infinite advantage of their imposing ejtseiiible. 

We traverse the winding lagoon for an hour in 
continual delight, every passing moment, every 
quiet turn of our launch or gondola beneath arching 
bridge or jutting revetement opening up in either 
direction new and ravishing vistas of architectural 
beauty. Yet how little have we considered that the 
very means of our enjoyment, the pure blue water- 
way upon which our gondola so listlessly floats, is 
the crowning artifice by which the work of the archi- 



FOREGROUND AND VISTA AT THE FAIR 83 

tect is glorified — a very triumph and inspiration in 
the great scheme of landscape — say rather water- 
scape — gardening, which has made this Columbian 
Fair a unique model for all others of its kind. I 
think it is conceded by the architects of the Fair that 
in no way are its buildings to be seen to such satis- 
faction or full effect as from the lagoon. And it is 
well to remember, if only as an instructive object- 
lesson, as we glide upon this liquid street, how 
much of our present enjoyment is due to the fore- 
thought of a supreme design, which, even before a 
single foundation-wall was laid, had taken into ac- 
count the most effective grouping of the architect- 
ural features. 

More than this, too, how many of these fortunate 
architects must have realized the rare satisfaction of 
having builded better than they knew, when for the 
first time they viewed their works from the vantage 
point afforded by their collaborator, the landscape 
artist, and saw these superb creations given back to 
them in twofold beauty from the clear mirror of the 
lagoon. The unique character and important inno- 
vation of this lagoon feature may be inferred when 
we consider that we have here an Exposition cover- 
ing over five hundred and fifty acres, comfortably 
filled to its limits with the ample buildings, and yet 
no vehicles are to be allowed within its enclosure, 
and none will be required. The circuitous elevated 





railroad will of course trans- 
port the multitudes ; while 
by the interior skilful distri- 
bution of the water-ways, rip- 
pling with gayly caparisoned 
gondolas by the score, and a 
hundred trim electric launch- 
es and other equally pictu- 
resque craft, every portion of 
the grounds wuU be easily 
accessible. The entire circuit 
on this water - course, from 
any given point, will occupy 
nearly an hour. The luxu- 
rious tourist arriving- at his 
destination is invited at the 
water's edge by ascending 
terraces of marble steps, their balustrades on either 
side overtopped by picturesque masses of tropic 



THE BORDER OF THE LAGOON. 



FOREGROUND AND VISTA AT THE FAIR 85 

and other luxuriant veo:etation. Hui^e bronze-like 
agaves surmount the lofty marble urns ; cannas, 
musas, caladiums, in most effective and artistic 
groups, are dispersed among broad expanses of 
velvety sward, begemmed with parterres of brill- 
iant bloom. 

But it is not alone in these picturesque settings 
of lawn and garden which everywhere abound 
throughout the grounds that we find our fullest ap- 
preciation of the landscape art. In the spell of these 
imposing structures, towering above the revetement 
walls on each side as we traverse the lagoon, we 
had utterly ignored another feature of its banks, or 
perhaps had our attention only momentarily in- 
veigled thither by the invitation of the bevy of 
snowy ducks or geese or graceful swans hastening 
from our prow, and gliding beneath the overhang- 
ing boughs of feathery gray willows. Here indeed 
is a haven for a tired soul, a fairy realm whose mod- 
est charms are apt to be overlooked in the claims of 
the overwhelming^ architectural surroundino["s. But 
sooner or later its restful refuQ:e will be discovered 
and welcomed. How many a foot -sore mortal, 
weary from the very excess of enthusiasm, will seek 
this quiet retirement, content for the moment to 
consign the architect to the accessory place of vista 
and horizon, while he roams and pries and muses 
among the labyrinthian paths, fragrant bowers, and 



86 



SOME ARTISTS AT THE FAIR 



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cfj^ 






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A BIT OF THE CALI- 
'3 FORNIAN BUILDING. 



shadowy glades, and along the reedy flowery bor- 
ders of this sylvan fairy island, which the artistic 
^.-.<^-. eenius of Olmsted and Codman 

has here, in two short years, 
conjured up like m a g i c 
from the muddy, dreary 
marsh. 

Connected to the main- 
ly/- land by a half-dozen spans 
of bridges, it is readily ac- 
cessible from any approach. 
It is a realm of stranoe in- 
consistencies and surprises, 
harmonies and pleasant 
discords, unified w^ith the rarest skill. The 
familiar park or garden at one moment, its 
curvino^ w^alks encirclino- more or less — 9'en- 
^ erally less — conventional parterre, diversified 
with closely bedded mosaic of bright blossoms ; 
and now a path leading us between high walls of 
blossom-laden shrubbery, skirting a rustic arbor, or 
w^inding beneath the shade of tall, dense branches 
of trees, which, however at home they may appear, 
so wonderfully has the skill of the landscapist con- 
cealed his artifice, are still almost as much strangers 
to the soil as ourselves ; the adjustment and group- 
ing giving the complete illusion of nature's random 
planting. 



FOREGROUND AND VISTA AT THE FAIR 



87 



Only a very few of the thousands of trees upon 
this " wooded island "—medium-sized white-oaks — 
are native tenants of the place. Only two years ago 
isolated in the more elevated dunes of a great mo- 
rass, they now find themselves in strange company; 




THE CALIFORNIAN BUILDING. 



the soil from the bed of the lag^oon, havino- levelled 
the former slopes about their feet, is now peopled 
with individuals as large as themselves. Many a 
rare nook upon the island's borders would defy the 
critical scrutiny of the botanist or artist to detect a 
single tell-tale evidence of artifice. Would you step 
from the conventional park to the wild garden in 



88 



SOME ARTISTS AT THE EAIR 



ten paces ? Follow me through this winding path, 
embowered with its snowy banks of spiraea. Pry 
your way here beneath the branches. A few more 
steps, and the ripples gleam through the branches 

before us, and we emeree 
at the water's edge be- 




A COVE IN WOODED ISLAND. 



neath a tanofle of wil- 
lows, while a brood of 
white ducks, disturbed at 
our approach, glide out 
upon the mill-pond — for 
^"^-^ such indeed is the irresisti- 

ble association from the surroundings. This hap- 
hazard chaos of willows and alders disarms all sus- 
picion of artificial planting. We already anticipate 
the scene at the brink, and as we press our way 
among the yielding oziers, find ourselves listening 



FOREGROUND AND VISTA AT THE FAIR 89 

for the familiar " c-r-o-n-k " among the spatter- 
docks. 

In a moment more we confront a tiny cove bor- 
dered with sedges and tall bulrushes, and intermin- 
gled gray-green willows and alders, while the water 
beneath is hidden by dense clumps of lush pickerel- 
weed, luxuriant in their feathery spikes of azure 
bloom. A tiny sportive frog leaps from the border 
mud, and a dragon-fly darts past on shimmering- 
wing. 

It is only as we contemplate the vista across the 
water that we realize the beautiful deception as 
yonder beetling dome, in its gilded splendor, or sun- 
lit palaces everywhere gleaming through the waters 
are brought to our feet in ripples from gliding gon- 
dola, swan, or duck. 

Was ever border-tangle brushed by mill-pond 
raft or fishing-punt more wild or spontaneous than 
this ! Foreo^round and vista in endless combination 
and surprise greet us as we follow our course about 
the shore, with Flora's own wild calendar from week 
to week. Here a secluded harbor, bristling with ar- 
rowheads and white with its spires of bloom, its 
sedgy banks aflame with cardinal flowers, whose 
scarlet reflections mingle with the snowy glints from 
the sunlit fagade or spangling flashes from the crys- 
tal dome across the water. Here we invade the 
sheltered retreat of a bittern or small heron, which 



90 SOME ARTISTS AT THE FAIR 

stalks away with ruffled temper at our intrusion. 
Creeping between the neighboring bank of alders, 
we emerge upon a sequestered nook shut off from 
the main lagoon by a small, straggling islet, plumy 
with willows and sedges, the main banks fringed 
with rushes and burr-marigolds and tall galingales 
that wave their graceful heads above a wild garden 
of blossoming blue flag. In and out among its wil- 
lows beyond, the ever-present fleet of ducks glides 
among the dancing ripples, or snow-white swans 
" float double — swan and shadow," as in the en- 
chanted vision of '' St. Mary's Isle." 

As we leave this beo^uilino- haunt the air is sud- 
denly bewitched with entrancing perfume, and our 
fancy lit with luminous visions of the Orient from 
the great golden doorway which glows through the 
branches from the opposite brink and floods the 
water with its liquid replica. Attar of roses ! One 
such inviting whiff is sufficient. Leaving the w^ater s 
edge we return toward the interior of the island, and 
are soon confronted by the wonderful rose-garden 
wherein are assembled all the roses of the world, 
with their thousands of varieties. Roses siuQ^le 
and double, pink roses, white roses, roses yellow, 
crimson, orange, and saffron, and, indeed, of every 
hue but blue, mingling their beauty and their fra- 
grance in an acre of bloom, and sprinkling the 
ground in showers of petals with every breeze. 




/ THK EDGE OF THE ROSE GARDEN, 
WOODED ISLAND. 



The now famous rose- 
garden lies in the southern 
end of the island, approached 
through winding walks, gar- 
landed with flowery shrubs 
of every habit and hue, of grace- 
ful blossom - burdened spiraeas, 
drooping as wdth a weight of snow, 
or varied with rare foliaged plants 
~^ -'-; which vie with the flowers in the 

endless play of their brilliant colors. 
Through the skilful foresight and planning of Mr. 
John Thorpe, the custodian of this realm dedicated 
to Flora, the fair goddess has crowned him with a 
new decoration of wreath or laurel for every week, 






92 



SOME ARTISTS AT THE EAIR 



from the earliest yellow glow of 
May to the brilliant maples 
and the final au- 
tumnal glory of the 
chrysanthemum. 
Japonica ! Ja- 
ponica! How 
continually does 
the spirit of the 
flowery land hover 
here! It is, indeed, 
«;&^^ scarcely a surprise that 
S^'^ the actual, familiar out- 
lines of its quaint mas- 
sive gables suddenly con- 
fronts us, looking down 
above a mass of the Mi- 
kado's own chrysanthemum, and we suddenly find 
ourselves transported to Tokio or Yokohama, sur- 
rounded by a veritable epitome of Japan, embracing 
all the actual features, floral, ornamental, and utili- 
tarian, with which, through the educational influence 
of painted fan and screen and household gods of 
vase and kakemono, we have become so pleasantly 
familiar. 

The long, low-roofed, wooden temple is sur- 
rounded from its foundation by a characteristic ter- 
raced garden, embracing many examples of those 




JAPANESE BUILDING ON WOODED ISLAND. 



FOREGROUND AND VISTA AT THE FAIR 



93 



'' precious goods done up in small parcels," which 
have always been the particular fad of the Japanese 
horticulturist — tiny giants of trees, so to speak, ar- 
ranged in miniature parks, which, for the moment, 
make the beholder seem to be upon a mighty cliff or 
in flight with the soaring falcon, else how could he 
thus gaze down upon the summit of such a huge, 
lofty pine as this which he now sees beneath him ! 
A fine example of one of these arboreal paradoxes is 
to be seen in the Japanese exhibit in the Horticult- 
ural Building — an aged dwarf of an arbor vitce 
{Thuja) like a gigantic cedar of Lebanon, which, 
while having all the inherent characteristics of an 
actual age and dignity of over one hundred years, 
is still, with the big vase which it occupies, barely 
the height of one's shoulders. 




AN AGED JAPANESE DWARF, ONE HUN- 
DRED YEARS OLD — A CORNER OF THE 
HORTICULTURAL BUILDING. 



94 SOME ARTISTS AT THE FAIR 

In no Structure within the grounds is the out- 
ward expression so sympathetically reflective of its 
architectural purpose as in the Fisheries Building. 
Itself reflected in the blue lagoon, in its architect- 
ural functions and sculptural ornament, it in turn re- 
flects the lacustrine life of the w^aters, w^hich not only 
almost lave its foundation walls but actually pour 
into its interior in fountain and cascade and gigantic 
aquaria. As we follow around these green trans- 
lucent walls within, our passage lit only from the 
difi'used lio'ht transmitted from above the water, we 
can almost fancy ourselves walking on the actual 
river-bed, ogled by familiar forms of sun-fish, perch, 
or pickerel ; or perhaps wandering as in a dream 
amonQ[- fair ocean caves abloom with brilliant sea- 
anemones, and embowered with mimic Qrroves of 
branching corals and all manner of softly swaying 
sea-weed — graceful crimson laminaria reaching to 
the surface of the water, responding in serpentine 
grace to the soft invasion of waving fin. Rare liv- 
ing gems of fishes, very butterflies of the deep, float 
past flashing in iridescence with every subtile turn 
of their painted bodies. Star-fish, at first apparently 
stationary, as though in mid-water, glide across the 
illusive plane of glass, with their thousand fringy 
discs of feet. Strange crabs and mollusks and 
bivalves sport on the pebbly bottoms, and porten- 
tous monsters, with great gaping mouths, threaten 



FOREGROUND AND VISTA AT THE FAIR 



95 




:i^' 



_j5EBESrrarT 


jK.,ua»najB4l!llWUU' ■ - 


•■lill«.'.l!V._-,^.>. 


J,. _ ,,1 ,„,-|,U^ _ 


"•IHif'ui.ojJlji.i: 


^_ 




- 



us as they emerge from their nebulous obscurity and 
steal to within a few inches of our faces. 

All of its interior ichthyological features might 
have been anticipated even at the 
threshold of the building, with its 
rich and effective portals, wdiere 
so many of these very forms are 
seen petrified in surface orna- 
ment. The building- is in the 
form of a rectanoular central 
structure with two octagonal 
annexes, each with its own :5 
beautiful portal, and con- -^- 
nected to the main edifice 
by curved colonnades, with 
arch and balustrade — portal and pillar, capital, en- 
tablature and arch and panel — everywhere sculpt- 
ured with ornaments whose themes are drawn from 
the subaqueous life to which the building is dedi- 
cated. The very balcony upon which we lean is 
supported by columns composed of four ingeniously 
and gracefully interlocked dolphins, while the pillars 
on rio^ht and left and throuohout the entire exterior 
suggest curious geometric fossils from the deeps. 
Here a spiral procession of huge toads, whose un- 
couth shapes thus embodied in conventional orna- 
ment are singularly agreeable and effective. Each 
successive pillar is a study alike for the naturalist or 



PORTAL OF THE FISHERIES BUILD- 
ING. 



96 SOME ARTISTS AT THE EAIR 

designer — here a sinuous procession of river-horses 
(hippocampus), the incurved tail forming a volute 
repeated with pleasant effect in the spiral bands of 
ornament. Accommodating star -fishes embrace 
their respective pillars, touching points in geomet- 
ric desion. Here are eels and fishes meanderini^ 
among bulrushes and arrowheads. Lizards, crabs, 
and turtles, each combine in efi'ective ornament about 
their particular columns, which are surmounted by 
capitals of even greater ingenuity and eff'ectiveness 
of design, perhaps because less geometric. Gaping 
frogs leaping among water-weeds ; lobsters captive 
and sprawling in their wicker '' pots ; " fishes en- 
tangled in the meshes of nets, or engaged in mor- 
tal combat, their gaping mouths finely utilized in 
effective points of shadow — the modelling of each 
and all suggests the perfection of a cast from nat- 
ure. To those who look for a happy blending of ar- 
chitectural purpose and harmonious ornament, this 
building will be a welcome innovation. To the 
naturalist or the idler in quest of the mere pict- 
uresque, the Fisheries Building with its wandering 
fagade and colonnade, its roof of ruddy tiles and al- 
most Moresque richness of surface ornament in 
high relief, will be found well worth careful study. 

How many are the obvious natural themes yet 
awaiting their sculptured memorial in the temple of 
architecture. Must the classical and testy acanthus 



FOREGROUND AND VISTA AT THE FAIR 



97 



forever guard that ex- 
alted basket unchal- 
lenged, and the 
antique, indeed 
almost palaeon- 
tologic lotus 
forever keep 
us oblivious 
to the abound- 
ing wealth of 
natural sug- 



gestion 




ELKHORN FERN, A SUGGES- 
TION FOR AN ARCHITECT «r-,j:- .^ ^ 
— IN THE AUSTRALIAN EX- 
HIBIT, HORTICULTURAL 
HALL. 



of even surpassing 

opportunity ? What 

a rare susforestion for a r ' 

national architectural theme, for instance, has nature 

thus far wasted on the wilderness in that elk-horn 

fern of Australia, which forms one of the most con- 



98 SOME ARTISTS AT THE FAIR 

spicuous features of the arboreal exhibit of that land 
of tropic contradictions and zoological anomalies. 
Where can there be found another such ready-made 
and graceful model for a massive capital ? 

Had this remarkable plant chanced to have been 
a native of ancient Egypt or Rome or Greece, it is 
difficult to conceive of its having escaped being im- 
mortalized in stone. Will the future national archi- 
tecture of Australia ever embody its opportunities ? 
Here is a veritable capital of clustered fern-forms, 
springing in graceful relief from a solid sculptured 
base. In some of the examples shown it simply sur- 
rounds the trunk upon which it is a parasite, and in 
others, the architectural suggestion is heightened by 
the cluster appearing at the summit of its pillar, the 
dead continuation of the trunk above having fallen. 

Superlative anticipation of our hopes is often 
disastrous to their full realization. But no such dan- 
ger awaits the visitor to the Columbian Fair. The 
most extreme glorification of this superb achieve- 
ment at Chicago still leaves us the superlative of 
actual experience. 

Dull indeed must be the intelligence which fails 
to respond to the vision of beauty which the genius 
of architecture has here created. Whatever oblivion 
may await the other features of the Exposition^ the 
fame of the architect is secure. Even thouQh in their 



FOREGROUND AND VISTA AT THE FAIR 99 

substance his creations here are but as the flowers 
of a day, to be cut down ere the coming of winter, 
their very evanescence constitutes their most abid- 
ing charm. 

Though we may spend weeks in the enjoyment 
of the unexampled treasures within these walls, con- 
fusion will at length claim most of our minor rem- 
iniscences, and the winnowing process of the years 
will at last leave few tokens. But the glamour of 
this celestial city, this throng of ethereal palaces hov- 
ering between sky and sky, buoyant as with uplift- 
ing archangel wings from dome and pinnacle and 
acroteria — these will abide to the end of our days. 




THE PICTURESQUE SIDE 

By F. Hopkinson Smith 



I. 



A BLAZING sun and a clear limpid sky, a long 
lagoon, gray-green and silver, a noble flight 
of steps serving as water-landing for half a 
dozen gay-colored gondolas, a grand balustrade pro- 
tecting a broad platform leading to the porch and 
entrance of the most exquisitely beautiful building 
of modern times — the Art Palace of the Great Ex- 
position ! 

From the corner of this balustrade a red rag of 
an awning, torn from an old tarpaulin, is stretched 



THE PICTURESQUE SIDE 101 

to an oar, its black shadow spilling down the white 
steps. Under this awning, flat on his back, sound 
asleep, lies a gondolier, fresh from Venice. Despite 
his nondescript costume of brigand s leggings and 
cavalier's cap I cannot mistake that broad chest and 
sunny face, the crisp black hair, and the fine lines of 
the throat and thigh. 

'' Espero ! " I call out in glad surprise. 

*' Commandi Signore^' comes the quick reply, as 
he springs to his feet. 

Other gondoliers join us : Marco, who at home 
plys a boat at the Traghetto, just above the Salute ; 
and Luigi, who for five years past has won at the 
Annual Regatta on the Grand Canal — a superb fel- 
low is Luigi, as handsome as a Venetian, and every 
inch a gondolier; and Francesco, his brother, first 
gondolier to the Countess, whose palace fronts the 
Accademia. For the instant I am in Venice again, 
while they all talk to me at once, telling me of their 
friends and mine whom we have known there — sub- 
jects far more absorbing than all the surprises of this 
new world. Five minutes later we are swinging up 
the Lagoon, Marco bending his oar aft, Espero on 
the cushions beside me. 

There is to me a seeming fitness in entering the 
Court of Honor reclining in a gondola and rowed by 
a gondolier. No other craft that floats could so per- 
fectly harmonize with these surroundings ; none so 



10-2 



SOME ARTISTS AT THE FAIR 




THE PERISTYLE. 



daintv, so Q-raceful, so cliQ-nified. There are no other 
oarsmen who could move with such ease and finish. 

These stately 
water - birds of 
Venice and their 
masters add, too, 
an element of 
the picturesque. 
They are to the 
lagoons what 
the flowers are 
to the espla- 
nades, or the swans to the smaller inlets. The 
launches, noiseless as they are, seem out of place 
here and jar upon your senses ; they are too new, 
too suggestive of progress and revenue and time- 
savinQ'. But the g-ondola revives the traditions and 
customs of those earlier centuries, when this great 
White City of the Lake was still in its glory. More- 
over, it is the only sort of princely craft which these 
noble families, whom you feel sure have lived for 
centuries in these great palaces, could use in their 
magnificent goings and comings. 

For whenever I stand on the bridQ^e of the Per- 
istyle and look across the Court of Honor, surren- 
dering myself to the magic spell of its beauty, I can- 
not help yielding to the conviction that this noble 
quadrangle is surrounded by palaces of marble 






^ ^ 




I- !')»^ftiV> : H 



'(P-irrr 




i^^j}^:±: 



DISTANT VIEW OF DOME OF THE HORTICULTURAL BUILDING. 



THE PICTURESQUE SIDE 105 

which have taken centuries to perfect; that the 
grounds and walks, stretches of grass, masses of 
flowering plants, and bold colossal statues have all 
been added from time to time, as in other palace 
gardens of old, when opportunity or royal whim dic- 
tated ; that this great city was built ages ago, long 
before the time of the Greeks, who modelled their 
own temples along their classic lines ; and that not 
only were its builders the ablest and most learned 
men of all ages, but that their descendants, those 
who live beneath these roofs, are the wisest, the 
most cultured, and the most artistic men and women 
of their time. 

To me, moreover, the City is never evanescent 
nor unreal ; never like a house built upon the sands. 
It is, when I look at it in amazed delight, not only 
entirely genuine, but firm and solid as the marble 
w^hich it resembles. It is too vast, and the elements 
of atmosphere, perspective and proportion, enter too 
largely into its ensemble to make it appear other 
than genuine. When, for instance, you stand in 
Athens, near the Parthenon, and your eye falls on a 
broken column at your feet, you see that it is marble, 
and you know that it is heavy. But without this 
sample stone in the foreground, and your knowledge 
of the character and quality of the material, the 
whole temple is to you, from where you look, only 
a film of light, now ivorv, now alabaster, now lost in 



lOG 



SOME ARTISTS AT THE EAIR 



purple shadows. Here, about the White City, there 
is no broken column as an eye test, there are only 
superb fagades, reaching skyward, and great stretches 
of columns and arches, relieved by gilded domes 
and sculptured frieze. They are never close to you 
— no comprehensive view is possible nearer than 
two hundred feet, and who can tell ''staff" from 
marble at that distance — but far away, across the 
shimmer of the Lagoon, or over the massing of foli- 
ao^e or clustered roofs. 

There is, in addition to all this element of reality, 
a reality which every one must feel for himself, still 
another charm — an undefinable quality that con- 
stantly surprises and delights you. To this is united 
a majestic picturesqueness investing these superb 

palaces and 
royal gardens 
with a distinc- 
tion never at- 
tained by any 
of their prede- 
cessors. This 
does not seem 
to be due so 
much to colos- 
sal proportions 
nor to the never-ending series of buildings piled one 
behind the other, as to the skill shown by architects 



f ^^^^m ^"^ mu^^m^.. 




DOME OF HORTICULTURAL BUILDING AT NIGHT. 




IX OLD VIENNA. 



THE PICTURESQUE SIDE 109 

and landscape gardeners in the general plan. Es- 
pecially is this charm felt in the absence of rectan- 
gular lines of construction ; in the winding in and 
out of the lagoons ; in the neglected fringing of un- 
trimmed foliage skirting the water's edge ; in the 
half submerged bits of islands where the ducks 
plume their feathers ; in the informal formality of 
great massing of plants ; in the dotting of broad 
stretches of gray-green water with gay-colored gon- 
dolas ; and in the colossal proportions of superb dec- 
orative statues, so that a glimpse of Venice can be 
caught between the forelegs of a huge sculptured 
bull, and the columns of a classic temple be outlined 
over the back of some water-sprayed mermaid. 

It is easy while under the spell of this Ancient 
City to persuade myself that in this their festival 
year, these nobles who dwell here are holding high 
carnival, with much feasting and merry-making, and 
illuminations at night. That they have bidden all 
the nations of the earth to join them in these gra- 
cious festivities lasting many months ; and that as 
an especial honor, and for the delight and entertain- 
ment of these distinguished guests, they have de- 
creed that a great fair shall be held where may be 
seen many strange people from the uttermost parts 
of the earth, who, with barbaric dancing and weird 
music may depict the manners and customs of their 
climes. That this Fair of the Festival Year shall be 



110 SOME ARTISTS AT THE FAIR 

placed, not within the lines of the Palaces but out- 
side the walls of the Great City, at the end of a 
broad highway, rolled out like a huge carpet of many 
colors. 

• • • • • • 

Rousing myself from these reveries, I bid Espero 
good-by, join the throng, follow through the gates 
and so out upon this broad highway, the Plaisance. 
My dreams are all true. Along the crowded 
thoroughfare move half the wild tribes of the earth 
— Javanese, Esquimaux, natives of the Soudan, 
Bedouins from beyond the Great Desert, Algerians, 
Arabs, Greeks, Armenians, Syrians, and Turks. 
Fringing each edge of this gay promenade I find 
the huts of the Javanese and Soudanese, the tents 
of the Bedouins and Arabs, and the more preten- 
tious booths and structures of the Alcrerians and 
kindred people. Here, too, are the quaint gateways 
and open squares of old German and Austrian 
towns ; the low-roofed, deftly constructed houses of 
the Japanese ; the intricate carvings of India cover- 
ing the booths, and, draping the doors of the East- 
ern bazaars the rich stuffs, rugs, and tapestries of the 
Orient. 

Near the entrance to the Turkish village, tucked 
away on one side of the highway, just out of the 
rush of the never-ceasin^f thronof, and yet close 
enough to be within call, rises the dome of a small 



THE PICTURESQUE SIDE 



111 



Mosque. Above this a single, snow-white minaret 
shoots up into the blue. 



V 



N\_ 




MOSQUE OF THE SULTAN SKLIM. 



When the sun is gone there leans from a tiny 
balcony high up on this needle of a minaret, a white- 
robed priest. Suddenly above the whirl and hurry 



112 SOME ARTISTS AT THE FAIR 

there filters down through the soft twihght air the 
Muezzin's call for prayer : 

"La Ilah Ell-Allah Muhammed Rassoul Ell- 
Allah." 

To me there is nothing so simple, nothing so im- 
pressive, nothing so devout, as a Muhammedan 
standing in the presence of his God. There is a 
childlike faith, a manly trust, a sincere belief 
evinced and experienced by these believers, that 
never seems to predominate in any other form of 
religion. 

How often, in a great cathedral, do you come 
upon a figure silently leaving the confessional, and 
catching a full view of the face, detect a lingering 
trace o\f sorrow, or anxiety, or doubt. But watch the 
faces of these Muhammedans, these poor sedan-chair 
carriers, and of that broad-shouldered Arab, who has 
been moving great boxes of unpacked goods on his 
back all day. How tired they all look as they enter 
the Mosque, bowing low with reverent awe, and 
prostrating themselves wearily to the pavement. It 
is as if each penitent had brought his very burden 
within these sacred precincts, supplicating for relief. 

Now look, when the silent service is over, and 
study these same faces as, with a light-hearted 
spring, each man rises from his knees and with 
serene expression, and calm, restful eyes takes up 
once more the burden of his life. 



THE PICTURESQUE SIDE 113 

This exquisite and picturesque little Mosque — 
it is the prototype of the purest bit of Eastern archi- 
tecture in Stamboul — these thoroughly genuine peo- 
ple, this sacred service — not as a necessary part of 
the Oriental exhibit, but as an essential, indispen- 
sable part of the life of the natives themselves — this 
combination of the genuine and the picturesque is 
to me the true keynote of the Great Exposition. 

II. 

My old and valued friend, Far-away Moses : — 
What a superb old Shylock he is ; not in the sense 
of " three thousand ducats and for three months," 
but in the unique quality of the character itself! 
Neither Irvine: nor Booth ever conceived so fine and 
fitting a costume as this old man wears every day in 
and out of his bazaar, and along the streets of his 
transplanted village ; a costume of soft material, 
with an under-vest delicately embroidered, the over- 
jacket a coat of brown camel's-hair with dark red 
voluminous waist-sash and the wide Eastern skirts 
covering his still sturdy legs. 

My old and valued friend, Far-away Moses, I 
say, invited me to dinner. I have enjoyed this es- 
pecial privilege very often in his own bazaar in 
Stamboul, and the aroma of the Mocha and the 
soothing qualities of his Narghilehs have haunted 



lU 



SOME ARTISTS AT THE FAIR 



mc ever since. Now, thanks to his courtesy, I can 
enjoy them every day. There is nothing missing in 
the surroundings of his own bazaar here on the 




" FAR-AWAY MOSES." 



Plaisance. The walls are hung with the wealth of 
the East. Divans are scattered about. On a low 
table, octagon-shaped and inlaid with mother-of- 
pearl and ivory, lie yataghans and Turkish arms, 
embossed with silver and enriched with quaint de- 



sign. 



The liQ:ht struo^-o-les in throus^h the small 



THE PICTURESQUE SIDE 115 

windows and half defines the odd interior, quite as 
it does in his shop along the Bosphorus. I throw 
myself upon a pile of Eastern rugs and begin ad- 
justing the pillows in true Oriental fashion. 

The old man claps his hands, and instantly, as if 
rising through the rug itself, an attendant appears, 
receives an order in Turkish, and vanishes. Not a 
gentleman, if you please, in a soiled necktie, frayed 
shirt-front, and hired - by - the - month swallow - tail 
coat, but a swarthy Turk in gold - embroidered 
vest and the rest of it, who reappears in a flash 
with one of those exquisite squatty little tables that 
might serve in a baby house. Then more clapping 
of hands, and more Turks, one a gorgeous fellow in 
a solid gold jacket (the light is dim), undervest of 
purple and silver, sash brilliant scarlet, and so on, 
down to his magnificent slippers of red morocco, 
very much turned up at the toes. And then an in- 
laid tray with two dainty little cups, mere thimbles, 
into which is poured from a long-handled brass pot, 
sizzling hot over a charcoal fire, two mouthfuls of 
fragrant Mocha. Then the Narghilehs, with their 
long flexible tubes, amber mouth-pieces, and the bits 
of burning coal, keeping alight the little heap of 
Turkish tobacco on the top of the slender caraffe- 
shaped glass. 

We talk of the old days in Stamboul and of the 
morning we spent at the Bath, where I was par- 



IIG 



SOME ARTISTS AT THE EAIR 




DOORWAY OF THE TRANSPORTATION BUILDING. 



boiled and rubbed full of holes by two insufficiently 
clad Greeks ; and then of the festival night at Saint 

Sophia when, as 
a member of his 
household, I en- 
tered the Sacred 
Mosque bare- 
footed and be- 
fezzed. Later 
on a lighted lan- 
tern is brouQ-ht 
in, and we fol- 
low another 
gorgeous slave 
into the mysteries of my host's private apartments 
where a repast of kebabs and boiled rice is served. 

After dinner other lights are fixed against the 
walls of an outer court, and a dozen or more of his 
retinue — Far-away and his confrere, Roberto Levy. 
count five hundred and fifty followers — with weird 
song and gesture, throw themselves with perfect 
abandon into one of their wild native dances. 

This small army of the Faithful eat, sleep, and 
dress precisely as they do at home. The Bedouin 
women huddle in the dust outside their tents, bak- 
ing their wafer-like bread over rounded pans cover- 
ing heaps of live coals ; the men smoke and lounge 
on the mats ; the dancing-girls from Damascus and 



THE PICTURESQUE SIDE 117 

Syria, in the intervals of their stage work, shut 
themselves up in their curtain-closed rooms, at- 
tended only by their women. 

They allow no difference in their surroundings 
or atmosphere; there is no hurry nor rush nor 
noise ; only the indolent, lazy life of the East. Had 
the genie of the lamp been summoned from space to 
work these marvellous effects it could not have been 
better done. 

But the picturesque does not end with the Turk- 
ish village, its mosques, bazaars, cafe, theatre, and 
attendants. Enter the gates leading to the little toy 
houses of the Javanese, and stop for a moment at 
one of the doors. Half a dozen of the dancing-girls 
are cuddled together in the middle of the floor. 
There is no light except through the open door. 
Some are smoking cigarettes. One is painting the 
eyebrows of a comrade, who in turn is combing the 
other's hair. Two are stretched out on either side 
of the entrance lolling lazily. They smile cour- 
teously, and when one rises and trips away to the 
next miniature house, she drops you a slight defer- 
ential courtesy as she passes — not to attract your at- 
tention, but as challenging permission — to cross in 
front of you. 

If you, an admirer of Western civilization, offer 
some one of its subjects a piece of silver, you receive 
either the customary gruff thanks or the incredulous 



118 SOME AJ^TISTS AT THE FAIR 

stare. If you have doubts about the courtesy, the 
refinement, and the charm of the semi-barbarous 
East, try the same experiment on one of these little 
Javanese maidens, fully of age and yet hardly as tall 
as the curly haired daughter that you hold in your 
arms. When you tender her the coin she walks to 
where you stand without the slightest trace of either 
forwardness or timidity, drops on one knee — clasp- 
ing the money in her right hand — crosses both arms 
over her bosom, places the piece on her head, and 
then bowing low, her face toward you, retraces her 
steps into the bungalow. With each gesture she in- 
tends some graceful service — she is your slave — her 
heart is always true, her head in subjection. It is 
only her way of saying thank you — this poor little 
half-clad, half-civilized, Javanese maid ; but it is so 
gracefully, so charmingly done, it is so naive and sin- 
cere, that if you leave the door of her hut with a cent 
in your pocket you should be sentenced to spend 
a month in her village to learn better manners. 

As you are still in search of the picturesque, fol- 
low that barefooted Arab with fez and long yellow 
gown, who has just saluted with such respect and 
humility Roberto Levy (chief commissioner of all 
these Muhammedan people), touching his heart and 
lips and forehead after the manner of his race. He 
has some complaint to make or grievance to right. 
You note that the man enters a gate farther down 



%, 









IN CAIRO STREET 



THE PICTURESQUE SIDE 121 

on the Plaisance, above which you catch the min- 
aret of another mosque, overlooking "A Street in 
Cairo." Later on you discover that this barefooted 
Arab drives a camel alono^ this tortuous thorough- 
fare. 

Here again the quality of the picturesque is in- 
separably joined to the quality of the genuine. The 
street itself is a fair reproduction of the original, with 
its overhanging latticed windows, iron gratings and 
decorations; but the motley crowd that throngs 
through its crookedness is the native element itself. 
Camels with the dust of the desert ground into their 
scarred hides, every knot in the harness a guarantee 
of long service ; donkeys and donkey boys ; women 
closely veiled or w^earing the btirgi — a wooden spool 
bound over the nose, with a heavy fringe of black 
thread falling below the chin ; rows of idlers in dirty 
garments sprawled along the edges of the houses 
hugging the shade ; Nubians, black as ink, in w^hite 
burnoose and long gowns ; pedlers, street venders 
in odd Eastern costumes, and scattered throughout 
the curious throng the man from Maine and the gen- 
tleman from Texas. 

Everywhere you find the same element of the 
picturesque, everywhere is evident the same quality 
of the genuine. To accomplish these results space 
and time seem to have been annihilated. 

'' It is I who went up into the Soudan country 



122 SOME ARTISTS AT THE FAIR 

and brought out this family, come in and see," says 
a dark, black-bearded man, who might have the 
blood of all the races of the East in his veins. 

I thrust my head and shoulder through a narrow 
slit in the hut, shaped like an inverted teacup, and 
am confronted by a girl wearing a single garment of 
coarse cotton cloth, such as would cover a sack of 
salt. Behind her, squatting on the earth-floor, sit 
her husband and father, beating rude drums covered 
with skins. The girl instantly advances, lifts up her 
face and gazing into mine with half- closed eyes, 
gives herself up with slow movement of her feet to 
that peculiar spell which seems to possess all East- 
ern women when under the influence of the dance. 
The inmates are all uncleanly, unkempt, and, but 
for the earnest face and fawn-like eyes of the Sou- 
danese girl-wife, forbidding and repulsive. Of one 
thing, however, you are sure : had you wandered 
into the heart of their country and entered any one 
of their huts, you would have found the exact coun- 
terpart of what is before you now. 

So with the Algerians and Nubians, the Chinese 
and natives of Ceylon, Dahomey and the South Sea 
Islands, the Esquimaux even down to the glass- 
blowers from Murano : they are not a part of a show 
— they are the people themselves. How long this 
unconscious individuality w^ill continue and what 
degrading effects our civilization will produce on 



THE PICTURESQUE SIDE 123 

these strangers is a question which cannot be set- 
tled until the Fair is over. 

It is safe to say that never in the lives of the 
present generation will these things be repeated. 
Before the summer comes again the beautiful city 
will fade away like the frost-work of an early morn- 
ing. This broad highw^ay, teeming with life and 
color, will be but a neglected waste, w^hile the lovely 
lagoons will once more yield themselves up to the 
ever-encroaching lake. Every square foot of the 
wide inclosure should be sacred to every American, 
as marking for them and for the intelligent world 
a point in civilization never before reached by any 
people ; as marking the dawn of a new era in the 
progress of the Republic ; a new light in architect- 
ure, in mural decoration and sculpture ; in the weav- 
ing of exquisite stuffs, in the glazing of porcelains, 
the making of glass and perfecting of all the lesser 
arts that serve to beautify our homes and gladden 
our lives ; and in the proving, by comparison with 
the best work of the other nations of earth, the hi^h 
standard reached by our own artists, and the fixing 
forever of that position in the art of the world. 





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